Companion Subaru
by namehere124
Summary: Subaru and Ginga are rescued from the fire by a man in a blue police box, and five years later he comes back and is talked into taking them along
1. Chapter 1

"Sister, where are you?" the girl cried. Her only answer was the roar of the flames.

The girl coughed again, and fell to her knees.

"Sister, help me!"

Part of the walkway on the floor above collapsed as flames ate away at the supports. Even if she'd had the strength to run, she didn't have the courage to plunge through the blazing debris between her and the stairs.

"Help me, anyone!"

She shut her eyes and huddled down.

*Vwoorp* *Vwoorp*

The girl opened her eyes as she felt someone scoop her up. She saw the flames receding away from her and then a pair of blue wooden doors shutting. The man carrying her set her down and when she turned, she saw him frantically working controls around a hexagonal table. The sound of the fire outside suddenly vanished, and the man glanced back at her.

"Right then, give me a moment to get the scanner set up and then I'll have a look at you."

As he tapped at some buttons, she saw a flash of movement in the corner of her eye, and looked over at the chest of a second man in a sharply-tailored black suit.

"No, no, no, why are you using this setting? I'm not trying to fix a toaster here!" The man hit several more buttons seemingly at random. "I'm the Doctor, by the way. Who are you?"

The girl looked up as she spoke, catching a glimpse of the face of the man in the black suit.

"I'm-"

 _You should kill us all on sight_

The girl's fist slammed through the suit and the flesh and bone beneath with ease.

"-Subaru Nakajima."

"Subaru, huh? Nice name, good name, aha! _Cyborg_. No wonder you were so heavy. Got a setting for that, here we go. Metal bits all good, lungs a bit smoky but nothing that won't sort itself out. Just have to get you home now."

Subaru sniffled, then gathered herself and said "Wait, my sister. We need to find Ginga."

"Okay, just hold on. I'll find her. Just stay calm." He whirled over to another side of the table. "Ah, here we go." He flipped a lever, and the room shook.

The Doctor rushed over and opened the door, revealing a smoky staircase and a girl struggling up it.

"Ginga! Over here!"

The girl started and turned. "Subaru?"

"Big sis, come on!"

Ginga stared blankly at them for a moment, then shook her head and ran through the doorway. She hugged Subaru tightly, then looked around.

"Um, this is bigger on the inside."

Subaru blinked in confusion.

"Is it? I hadn't noticed," the Doctor replied.

* * *

*Five Years Later*

"So you were saved by a man in a magic box that's bigger on the inside and travels through time and space who calls himself The Doctor, and that's why you're here?" Teana asked.

"Yep! He said he might come back to take us with him when we grow up, so I have to be ready."

Teana sighed. "Honestly. Weren't there better things to be doing with your life?"

Subaru laughed. "But if I did something else, I wouldn't have met you, Tea!"

Teana blushed furiously. "Wh- what about me!?" she stammered.

* * *

"Ah, Midchilda again. Wonder how those girls have been doing? Well, time to be off."

He stepped out confidently and stopped short abruptly.

"Ah."

"Hello Doctor. I'm Lieutenant Colonel Hayate Yagami with the Time-Space Administration Bureau, and I'd like to ask you a few questions."

The Doctor looked at the brown-haired woman, then at the dozens of other people in the plaza, then at the collection of swords, staffs, and guns in their hands. "And what would everyone else like?"

The tall pink-haired woman holding a sword replied, "We would like you to answer a few questions."

+++Ginga, come on, the Doctor's back!+++ Subaru sent telepathically.

+++Hold on, I need to finish packing+++ Ginga sent back. She had an "in case of Doctor" bag ready, but she was in the process of frantically packing spare parts for Blitz Caliber, plus an extra set for Mach Caliber because she knew perfectly well that Subaru had forgotten. She'd have just stuffed some clothing and Cartridges in a bag and rushed off as soon as Hayate contacted them. Ginga shoved the last set into her suitcase, then started zipping up her collection of a wide variety of civilian clothing. Wait…

+++Subaru, did you pack any street clothes or just several changes of your uniform?+++

+++Umm…+++

* * *

"That covers all our security concerns, thank you. However, we would like to send some people to accompany you for a while."

The Doctor frowned. "Sorry, no, I don't take soldiers along."

Hayate smiled. "Oh, I think you might make an exception in this case."

"Doctor!" Subaru yelled as she and Ginga skated into the plaza.

"Hm, yes, that is persuasive." The Doctor frowned at their gauntlets. "No weapons, though."

Subaru and Ginga looked at each other. "How about Intelligent Devices? They're non-lethal."

The Doctor looked them up and down. "Well, I suppose those are safer than your bare hands. Come on then."


	2. Chapter 2

"Right, got the whole wide universe to show you; sapphire falls, exploding suns, the greatest cities ever built, but first," the Doctor's tone shifted to deadly serious, "I know soldiers don't get to run off on a lark. You're here under orders. What are they?"

Subaru gave a guilty smile as Ginga answered. "We're supposed to make sure you don't destroy time and space, prevent the TSAB from forming, or get your TARDIS hijacked. We're also to keep a log, though-" Ginga held up her gauntlet-clad left arm "-sections are to be locked by our Device's AI so they can't be accessed prior to when the recorded events happen."

"Otherwise, we're to accompany you wherever you want to go, or wait for you in the TARDIS." Subaru finished.

The Doctor looked at them skeptically. "And that's it, is it?"

"Well, no," Ginga projected a blizzard of holographic windows filled with tiny text from her Revolver Knuckle gauntlet, "but mostly it's instructions for how we're to conduct ourselves as representatives of the TSAB and when we're allowed to topple governments and start wars on our own initiative. I doubt it will come up much."

"Yes, definitely a rare occurrence. Alright, first stop is the diamond flats of Aldrione IV, untouched by any living hands!" He raced back to the controls.

Ginga got a familiar sinking feeling. "Wait, wait. Before we go anywhere we need to set up communications in case we get separated."

"Good idea. Here, show me your Devices," he pulled a small metal object out of his pockets. Subaru and Ginga held up their right and left arms respectively, and the Doctor ran the object over their gauntlets, emitting a green light and a high-pitched buzz. He frowned, shook it, and repeated the motion. "There we go." +++Testing, testing+++

+++Silver one, confirm receipt+++

+++Silver two, I hear you+++

+++Just use your names, please+++

* * *

The trio emerged from the TARDIS into the sunrise. The blue giant peeking over the horizon struck glittering highlights from the rugged surface of the plain, refracting through the diamond formations. Some of them acted as prisms, adding scattered rainbows to the dancing sunlight. Directly in front of the TARDIS, a particularly large cluster of diamonds caught the refractions, forming the rainbow light into concentric rings.

Subaru and Ginga looked around with undisguised awe, quietly watching the colors shift and play as the sun rose. Subaru finally broke the silence, asking "And we're the only people on this world?"

"Oh yes; it's far too isolated for anyone to come visit normally, not for the next several thousand years. And even then, it's hard to get to the plain. Too much wind, diamond dust gets into the air intakes of vehicles and aircraft, jams everything up. Too bad; it must look lovely from above, but we'd need some way to get up there that doesn't rely on engines. Now where would we get something like that?" He smiled.

"No problem!" Subaru declared cheerfully. "Activate inherent magic: Wing Road." Two strips of blue light appeared in front of her feet, curving sharply up to form a path into the sky, joined a moment later by purple strips from Ginga. Both of them deployed wheels from their boots, Subaru lifted the Doctor up, and the two sisters skated into the sky.

Five hundred feet up, they leveled out and stopped. Subaru sent her Wing Road crossing back and forth to form a platform and then rotated it to make a railing. Once it was complete, she set the Doctor down and turned to gaze over the side. From above, the formations traced out geometric shapes, with the light forming vague images.

While Subaru was lost in admiration, Ginga turned to the Doctor and spoke. "Your TARDIS travels across dimensions. Can't it fly?"

"It can, yeah. Bit hard to steer, though, sort of spins across the sky. Much more comfortable this way." He frowned slightly. "Though the blue, glowy floor is a bit distracting."

Ginga looked apologetic. "Sorry, we can't change the color of our spells, and this is our only way to get up in the air."

"Ah, yes, I see." He looked down at the plain for a while, then spoke loudly enough for Subaru to hear. "By the way, most people don't know much about what mages can do. Might want to watch out for them trying to find out by pretending they need help with something."

* * *

The next "month" was spent in a whirlwind tour of a myriad of beautiful and completely uninhabited places; untouched forests, binary supernovae, spectacular nebulae. They would spend up to fourteen hours at a time roaming their destinations, then return to the TARDIS to rest and pick their next destination. Each rest period, either Ginga or Subaru stayed awake in the control room the entire time to stand watch. Since they seemed to be getting enough sleep regardless, the Doctor pretended not to notice.

Four weeks in, as they materialized near a mismatched binary system where a giant's gravity ripped away the outer layers of a main-sequence star, the console started beeping. The trio clustered around the console. The Doctor examined a display. "It's a distress call. There's a ship nearby; it must have gone off-course; we're a long way from any regular routes."

Subaru nodded. "We can transfer aboard and evacuate them." She and Ginga materialized their barrier jackets. "Does the distress call say what the problem is?"

"No, it's just a generic emergency signal; 'We require urgent assistance. Any vessel receiving, please respond'."

"If they're not sending a more specific message, either their communications gear is damaged or they had to abandon it. The bridge could be damaged; taking out helm control too." Subaru squinted at the display, vainly searching for a familiar identification. "They're still transmitting, so they must have some power; at least some of the crew is probably in the engine room. Do you have any schematics for this ship design?"

"Um, might be somewhere in the library, but we don't have the time to go hunting through it," the Doctor said, blinking in confusion.

+++Subaru is in the Special Rescue Unit back home+++ Ginga explained.

"Then we'll have to guess," Subaru continued obliviously, "do a scan from outside and find a power source, then pick our arrival point."

The Doctor projected a hologram of the ship, a blocky, utilitarian design with four engines at the rear. He manipulated the controls, adding a glowing indicator around a third of the way from the back. "There's the power core; a fusion reactor. It looks like they're pointed right at that blue giant and they're firing their engines at full power. They'll start to burn up in a few hours." He gestured at another part of the image. "All the escape pods are still docked; they must not be able to launch them."

"Sabotage," Ginga said. "Someone's tampered with the ship systems, locked them on this course and disabled the escape pods, but couldn't lock out the distress call."

"The perfect crime," the Doctor mused. "Send it off course where no one could hear the distress call, and have the sun destroy the wreck so no search can ever find it. Someone wanted to make this ship just vanish, with no evidence leading back to them. But today is not their lucky day. Just got to jump into the engine room and we'll have plenty of time to bypass the lockout or evacuate the whole crew."

* * *

As soon as the TARDIS materialized, Subaru and Ginga dashed out of the doors, the Doctor racing over from the console to follow on their heels. They expected to see the crew desperately trying to reprogram the systems, though the sisters had no real idea what that would look like with mass-based systems.

Instead, they saw a shattered ruin. Every console in the room was melted or smashed apart, and the cabling had been deliberately and thoroughly ruined. The heavy doors to the engine room were shattered by an explosion. The blast had tossed welding gear and bodies against the walls and deeply scarred the floor, part of the burn abruptly terminating in an arc about ten centimeters from the metal cylinder in the center of the room. The air around it shimmered with distortion.

One of the uniformed bodies shifted slightly, and Subaru rushed over to her. "Hey, hey, hold still. Just stay calm; we're here to help."

Ginga swept the room, looking for threats, while the Doctor stared at the wrecked consoles. +++Something's not right+++ he sent +++This couldn't be just one saboteur. There must have been at least a dozen people just wrecking the engine room. And if that much of the crew was in on it, how'd the rest manage to blast the door open?+++

+++You're right+++ Ginga responded +++And the explosion was inside the room+++ She gestured at the ruins of the doors, which sprayed outwards from the former doorway. +++If it was to breach the doors, they would have needed a very powerful explosive to launch inside. Not the sort of thing you'd expect on a civilian ship, unless they had an elite mage aboard+++

+++It looks like this woman is waking up. We can ask her what happened+++ Subaru broke in. "Can you hear me? Do you understand what I'm saying?" she asked aloud.

The woman turned her head, revealing an opaque black mask with a glowing line at eye level. "Mariage is online," she said flatly.


	3. Chapter 3

"What's your name? Where are you?" Subaru asked worriedly, running through the standard alertness and orientation checklist. +++She might have brain trauma+++ she sent, reaching for the mask +++Concussion, at least+++

"She's armed!" Ginga yelled.

Subaru jerked back in surprise, and reflexively shifted into a guard stance. A moment later, a sword slammed into her gauntlet, spraying sparks as it clashed with her barrier. Subaru leapt clear, and did her best to look nonthreatening without lowering her guard. "We're here to help!" Subaru yelled. Then she actually looked at the woman's sword.

She wasn't holding it; just below the elbow her right arm shrank down into a metallic blade. Her uniform was torn, bloodstained fabric peeling away from a cut directly over her gut, revealing a layer of completely intact bronze-colored fabric.

"She was dead when we got here!" the Doctor yelled. "Something reanimated her corpse; made it into a weapon!"

Ginga moved in front of the Doctor, as Subaru grimaced and raised her fist. Her Revolver Knuckle began to spin, and she struck. With magic and machinery behind it, her punch cracked the blade and sent the woman reeling. The woman's left arm shifted and morphed into another blade, lashing forwards before Subaru could return to guard stance. Subaru shifted slightly, catching the blow on her Barrier Jacket's shirt. The jacket held, but just barely, fraying under the force of the blow.

Ginga raised her left arm, launching a quartet of glowing orbs. To her shock, the woman swung her blade to interpose, batting them away harmlessly. But the momentary distraction was all her little sister needed.

Subaru recovered, feinted with her right arm, and when the woman moved her blades to interpose, Subaru lashed out with her left hand, shattering the woman's left shoulder. Another blow with Revolver Knuckle sheared the weakened right blade in two. Two more expert blows broke the right arm and the left leg, and the woman collapsed. Subaru raised her fist for a killing blow, then hesitated.

"Hold on," the Doctor said, "Let's have a look at it. It spoke; I might be able to reprogram it to answer some questions." He pulled out his sonic screwdriver and started forwards, Ginga hovering protectively at his side.

The woman raised her head. "The Mariage cannot allow themselves to be captured. You will not interrogate me." Her body began to fall apart, dissolving into a black liquid. "Burn with me."

"Shield!" the Doctor yelled. Protective disks sprang into existence in front of Subaru and Ginga, only moments before the Mariage's remains exploded. The blast rolled around their shields and the forcefield surrounding the metal cylinder in the center of the room. Flaming liquid splattered around, and fire suppression systems engaged with a whine, spraying white mist into the room.

The explosion subsided, the flames guttered out, and the trio regrouped. The Doctor looked at the fresh burn marks. "I suppose we know what broke the door now. Some of these things must have gotten onboard and started killing the crew. Only question is-"

"Mariage is online," another voice interrupted.

They looked over to see another woman stagger to her feet, wearing the same mask as the first. Rather than a crew uniform, the remnants of a blue shirt hung over a bronze-colored dress.

"Why would the crew wreck their own ship instead of heading for the escape pods," the Doctor finished.

"Another one," Ginga said. "Be ready for the self-destruct this time. Let's go."

Another figure, this one with only tatters of the uniform left over its immaculate bronze-colored dress, extracted itself from a shattered console. "Mariage is online."

"Mariage is online," emerged from behind the metal cylinder.

"Mariage is online," added the body they'd stepped over as they left the TARDIS, who'd been obviously beyond help.

The Doctor hastily clicked his sonic screwdriver, and the TARDIS doors slammed shut and locked. "Mariage is online," sounded from behind the box.

Ginga's initial certainty rapidly eroded as she looked at the scattered corpses. "There's too many to fight at once. Doctor, what do we do?"

The Doctor held up his sonic screwdriver confidently. "I don't think they'll have an easy time cutting through your shield spells. Buy me some time, and I should be able to find a way to shut them down."

"Right arm weapon, form high explosive artillery cannon," the figure by the TARDIS replied.

"Okay, forget that last plan," the Doctor said quickly. "Bad plan, terrible plan. New plan. Run!"

Ginga grabbed him and they rushed out the doorway just in time to avoid the first shot. They hurled through the corridors, hearing "Mariage is online" echoing behind them. The halls were splattered with blood, occasional corpses laying among them, other pools showing imprints where they'd gotten up and walked away.

"Not an intruder," the Doctor said, "Not a person they could strand. Some sort of contamination. They couldn't just abandon ship, not when those things might be able to fly it. Take it to an inhabited planet, infect the morgues, and they could raise an army! There'd be no stopping them; not when every soldier or innocent they kill becomes another one of them."

"The crew knew they couldn't let that happen. No choice but to burn the entire ship! But this is an early Third Human Empire merchant ship; it's not designed to do that. They've got the safest starships in history; backup systems, emergency cutoffs, blast doors everywhere. Even if they could breach the reactor without it shutting down, it wouldn't roast the bridge or the crew quarters. Someone might find the wreck. But it can't survive inside a star! Lock it on course, disable the escape pods, and wreck the controls so they can't shut off the engines."

+++Switch to telepathy, these Mariages can understand us. If it's so safe, won't the ship stop them, change course to avoid the star?+++ Ginga asked, as they went left at an intersection.

+++Usually, yes, the autopilot would kick in. But the Third Empire Safety Bureau is clever. Clever enough to think of sensor malfunctions. Any three members of the bridge crew can override the computer+++

+++Then why the distress call? Shouldn't they be transmitting a warning to stay away?+++ Subaru cut in.

+++It's not the crew+++ Ginga realized. +++The Mariages must have triggered it+++

+++There might still be survivors; we have to help them+++ Subaru sent +++Doctor, if you know what kind of ship this is, can you guess where they might be?+++

+++Not this exact model, but I know the style+++ the Doctor replied. +++If they're trying to keep the Mariages away from critical systems, they'd be at the bridge, environmental one and two, and the shuttle bay. There's also maintenance shafts; some of the crew might be hiding+++

+++Environmental first+++ Subaru sent grimly +++I don't think the Mariages need to breathe+++

+++Follow the green arrows+++ the Doctor replied, pointing at the upcoming junction from his perch in Ginga's arms. By now, they had seemingly left the Mariages behind, but felt no inclination to slow down.

As they complied, Ginga spoke up +++There's something bothering me. I'm not seeing anything magical on this ship; it all looks mass-based+++

+++Of course+++ the Doctor replied. +++The Third Empire is based out of Earth; you call it non-administrated world 97 when you come from. Most of the population can't use magic+++

+++Right; we're actually descended from some emigrants. We like to keep track of what's going on there, learn about major events. But that's not the problem. The ship is mass-based, but the way that first Mariage fought, it seemed like it was designed to fight mages. It deflected my shots, and it got through Subaru's barrier too easily+++ They rounded another corner, revealing another bloody corpse. +++And why are these corpses still here? They reanimate the dead; why leave any behind?+++

Their conversation was interrupted by a sound of rending metal from up ahead. +++Sounds like we've found survivors. Get the Mariages away from them, and try to keep one active so I can scan it+++ the Doctor instructed.

At the next intersection, Ginga set the Doctor down, and they turned to see five Mariages ahead, two hacking at a sealed blast door, the others standing ready to go through it. One of them had its right arm formed into a multibarrel machine gun, pointing it at the door.

+++Leave the left one for the Doctor+++ Ginga instructed. +++Take the one with the gun first. And Subaru, don't hold back+++

+++I understand+++ Subaru replied. Their eyes shifted to yellow, and they rushed forwards together.

The Mariages whirled, bringing their weapons to bear. The machine gun opened fire at the approaching duo, its wielder raising its left arm blade protectively. Subaru rushed through the storm of bullets; only a handful got through her barrier jacket, and those deflected off her artificial musculature, leaving only superficial wounds. Before the Mariage could shift to a more suitable weapon, Subaru struck. Ejecting a cartridge, she poured power into her implants and her Device with a shout of "Vibration Shatter!" The Mariage's blade came up to block the blow, and exploded. The Mariage jerked and fell, the power of Subaru's Inherent Skill tearing its mechanical components apart before it could trigger the self-destruct. Subaru whirled, ejecting another cartridge, and obliterated another.

Lacking her sister's specialized anti-mechanical capabilities, Ginga had to rely on raw force. She layered a magical blast onto her fist, driving through the blades of one Mariage and flinging it into the rightmost one. She followed up quickly, hoping that with two of them so close together they wouldn't self-destruct. She struck at the crippled one repeatedly, then at the legs of the unwounded one with her right hand. Its blades swept down, giving her an opening to strike with her left.

As she prepared another blow, the first Mariage spoke. "Mariage do not die alone." Ginga hastily raised a shield as her opponents began to dissolve. "The Flame King of Hades shall rule all." The corridor shook with the doubled blast, cracking her shield and forcing open the door the Mariages had been assaulting. Ginga's shield absorbed enough of the blast for Subaru and the remaining Mariage to shrug it off.

Several people had apparently been waiting for the door to fail, and lay stunned behind it. Further away, others stumbled to their feet, cursing and raising improvised weapons. "Stay back!" Ginga yelled, then turned to face the last Mariage. +++Doctor, this one. It shouldn't self-destruct while it can still fight+++

The Doctor dashed forwards, holding up his sonic screwdriver. The Mariage struck, but this time Subaru was prepared, engaging a standard protection spell. Ginga dashed to her side, and together they forced the Mariage back, striking repeatedly with standard blows.

As he scanned the Mariage, the Doctor spoke to it. "Why are you doing this?" The tone from the screwdriver shifted. "You're weapons, but you're not mindless. Why kill like this?"

"We have sustained losses," the Mariage replied. "We require reinforcements."

"Yes, but _why_? What are you fighting for? And in all the universe, why this ship?"

"We are separated from her majesty. We awoke and found materials here. We shall claim this ship and all aboard. We shall find Ixpellia once more. She will create an endless army, and Galea shall rule the stars."

"Ah," said the Doctor. "So this isn't some attack on the Third Empire. You're an antique, still fighting an ancient war for a dead nation, and it was just these poor people's bad luck to stumble across you. Whoever you're fighting for, they're long dead. Even if you get off this ship, there's nowhere to go. All you can do is kill until you're stopped, but that won't bring your queen back!"

"You are mistaken. Ixpellia is not dead. The Flame King of Hades can never die. We will go to her, and return her to her rightful place." Subaru struck again, keeping the Mariage on the defensive. The tone from the screwdriver changed again, and the Mariage's stance shifted. "Subversion attack detected. We serve Ixpellia always. We serve her to the last." The Mariage began to dissolve.

This time, Subaru and Ginga raised domes over it, containing the blast. The Doctor sighed and lowered his screwdriver. "So much for that plan."

Inside the environmental room, someone finally collected herself enough to speak. "Um, who are you people?"

"I'm the Doctor. We received a distress call and came to rescue you." He looked at the remnants of the doors. "It's a bit of a work in progress."

* * *

Author's note: No, I haven't been misspelling Marriage this whole time. The Mariage are from the Nanoha franchise StrikerS X sound stages, which happen ~3 years after the TARDIS departure, hence why Subaru and Ginga don't recognize the Mariage or Ix's name.


	4. Chapter 4

There were six people in the environmental room, two women and a man in uniform, three more men in t-shirts and shorts. They had a collection of crowbars, firefighting gear, and cutting tools, apparently intended to use for rescuing people trapped by power failures. Subaru had hastily bandaged her own injuries and then went to examine them. One of the crewwomen, who said her name was Allison, seemed to have taken charge, mostly by virtue of being the only one together enough to talk. She'd been near the door, and Subaru was checking her for injuries while she spoke.

"It started about twelve hours ago; apparently one of them was in the forward cargo hold. It killed at least five people before anyone was able to report it. Shipboard security responded, but…" she paused and winced, "We're just a transport; they're supposed to deal with crew troubles, unruly passengers, that sort of thing. It tore the first two to arrive apart; they lasted just long enough to tell us the bodies were standing up. The chief got the guns from the armory, and lead half his people to take them down. That's when we found out they explode."

"The captain got on the intercom, told us he was declaring a biological emergency. Quarantine protocols, seal all the bulkheads, lock in the monsters, move people into individual quarters, and stay that way until we could get a medical ship here. I'd been off-duty, but came here to help with isolating the ventilation systems. Right as I got here the monsters forced the first bulkhead. New orders; fortify the bridge and ship systems, gather everyone together and hold them off. Half an hour later the captain told us he'd decided the ship had to be destroyed; he'd already locked us on course and we needed to make sure the monsters couldn't cancel it."

"Last thing we heard over the intercom, they were hacking at the bridge doors. That was seven hours ago," she finished.

"This looks like a cargo hauler. Do you usually have a lot of passengers?" the Doctor asked.

"Depends, really. We can convert the cargo bays into passenger quarters, take charters. We had a couple on this trip."

"Anything unusual with them, extra cargo, boxes they won't explain, paying a lot to not ask questions, that sort of thing?" the Doctor continued.

"What are you getting at?" one of the men without a uniform, apparently a passenger, asked defensively.

Ginga's eyes narrowed. "We're trying to figure out how the monsters came aboard. Why does that concern you?"

"We're as much victims as anyone else," he shot back, "and what about you? Why were you out here?"

"Sightseeing. We wanted to see this place up close instead of through a telescope," Ginga said mildly. "Who are you?"+++He's up to something. Smuggling, probably. He's either new at it, or too small-time to get much official attention+++

+++I'll keep it in mind+++ the Doctor replied.

"I'm Tanaka," the passenger said, apparently belatedly realizing he should have kept his mouth shut. "I help new colonies set up systems; just finished an assignment and was heading home for vacation; company got me a berth with a tourist group that bought a block of space and had extra."

"So your last stop was a new colony, then. But with plenty of people wanting to visit, if you're taking a lot of passengers. Something special about it?" the Doctor asked.

Allison shrugged. "Prior inhabitants, apparently. Some old military outpost. We had some tourist companies, a big archeological trip from a university, that sort of thing. Cargo guys were whining about how the professors kept looking over their shoulders, telling them about how everything was so fragile, needed to be handled special. Nothing out of the ordinary, from what I hear."

"And this cargo went in the forward hold?" the Doctor guessed.

"I think so, yeah. Don't pay much attention," Allison replied.

"Yes, that makes sense. So, here's what happened. Long time ago, someone called the Flame King of Hades made himself, or maybe herself, an army of these Mariages, and tried to take over the universe. Didn't go too well, apparently, since I've never heard of them, but some of the Mariages must've been sent to destroy that outpost, and when their maker got stopped, they went into hibernation. Then some archeologists came poking around and dug one up. Thought it was dead, packed it up to stick in a museum. It woke up in transit, got loose, figured the war was still on, and decided to make some reinforcements."

The crewman spoke up. "That's all very interesting, but in case you forgot, we're currently on a ship full of zombie robots that's about to plunge into a sun! _Focus!_ "

"Right, sorry, got a bit distracted," the Doctor apologized. "We've got our ship in the engine room, plenty of space to evacuate everyone."

The man leapt to his feet. "Then what are we waiting for!? Let's go!"

"Yes, right, just one problem. There's also a small army of monsters in the engine room. Second problem, we still need to check for other survivors."

"And we still need to figure out how they're spreading," Ginga added. "We have to make sure the TARDIS isn't contaminated before we stop somewhere else."

"Oh, that's not a problem," the Doctor replied. "Couldn't get into their control system, but I did get a pretty good scan. It's not contagious; there's some kind of central core that does the changes. Can move, probably, but it doesn't survive the self-destruct and it didn't have the ability to make more by itself. Must have been a crate of the things in the cargo hold."

"Wait," Tanaka said incredulously, "You mean they can't overrun a planet, and we won't spread some plague? We could have just gotten in the escape pods and warned the military? We've spent the last ten hours on a suicide mission for absolutely no reason!"

"No, the ship still needs to be destroyed," the Doctor replied "The cores aren't microscopic, but they are small. Could be thousands, and if they can get to a planet they might be able to set up a factory, make more."

Subaru finished checking the last of the survivors, and turned to face the Doctor. "Everyone here is well enough to move. Let's go to the other environmental section and the shuttle bay, then figure out a way to retake the engine room. They're not that strong up close, but they've got that heavy cannon."

Allison looked slightly dazed. "Most of them only seem to be able to make swords; before the intercom went out they said there'd only been a few guns spotted." She took a deep breath and shook herself. "Anyways, who are you people? You came out of nowhere, you have a ship big enough to evacuate us _inside the engine room_ , you took out I don't know how many of those things in about twelve seconds, the girls look like teenaged kung-fu skaters, those things exploded in your faces and your clothes are just a bit singed," her voice rose as she gestured at Subaru, "and, and, she's been _shot_ , _a lot_ , and you're more worried about _our_ health, and-"

"I'm Subaru Nakajima, a mage with the Time-Space Administration Bureau," Subaru said, trying to calm her down. She projected her ID as she continued. "That's my sister, Ginga, also with the Bureau; we've been traveling with the Doctor through time for about a month." She looked at the expression on Allison's face. "Um, are you sure you're all right?"

"You're saying you're time-traveling wizards here to rescue us from ancient robot zombies, and you're asking if _I'm_ all right?" Allison shouted.

"Well, we're just riding in the Doctor's time machine," Subaru said lamely. She wasn't really prepared for dealing with adults who got _more_ hysterical when she identified herself, and couldn't think of where to go from there.

The Doctor held up a hand to keep Ginga from trying to help, and waited while Allison took several deep breaths. "Right, sorry," she said, "Time wizards, here to save us, got it."

"It can take some getting used to," the Doctor said kindly. "Right then, you know who we are; what about everyone else?"

"Juan," the crewman said. "Environmental engineer, same as Allison."

"Terry," said the remaining crewwoman, "environmental engineer. I was on-shift when this all started."

"Jim," one of the passengers said. "Day job is mining, got some vacation time banked and went on a trip with my husband." He gestured at the last man.

"And I'm Nelson," his husband said. "I work in the sales division."

"Pleased to meet you," Ginga said. "Let's go; environmental two and then the shuttle bay. I'll scout ahead; Subaru, fix the door, then bring them."

"How are-"Jim started, then stopped short as a glowing triangle, with circles at the vertices and center, expanded around Subaru's feet. As Ginga slipped through the doorway, Subaru pointed her Revolver Knuckle at the wreckage and began to chant.

"What was will be. That which is done shall be undone." She ejected a cartridge. "Reverse the current of the worlds."

"Damage reset." Revolver Knuckle finished. Light flared around the ruined door, and when it dissipated the door was completely intact.

The Doctor blinked. "You can reverse time?"

Subaru blushed and started fidgeting. "Well, I kind of looked up to you, and when we were doing joint exercises with the aerial corps, captain Takamachi mentioned that colonel Yagami had a spell that could restore inorganic objects, so… uh…" She abruptly bowed deeply "I'm sorry I didn't ask for permission!"

"No, don't worry about it," the doctor muttered, feeling embarrassed by proxy. "Anyways, places to go." He started walking. "Lock up behind us."

As they filed through the corridors, the Doctor spoke to Jim and Nelson. "You were on holiday. To visit the ruins?" They nodded. "What do you know about them? Particularly about how they got destroyed." While they spoke, they clambered through the ruins of one of the emergency doors, torn apart by the Mariage on their way to the environmental section.

"No one knows much," Nelson replied. "The builders were humans, apparently, but it's been dated to sometime before the 20th century. The archeologists say it doesn't seem to be self-sufficient, unless there's hydroponics in the levels they haven't excavated yet, but they haven't found other sites from the same civilization. They're working on translating their language; apparently their ruler is called "Holy Emperor" or "Saint King" or something simi-"

"Wait," Subaru interrupted. "Did you see anything that looked like this?" She projected a Modern Belkan-style triangle and held it up for them to examine.

Nelson squinted at it. "Yeah, the writing looks kind of similar- wait, why can I read it? I don't-"

"Translator in the TARDIS," the Doctor explained quickly. "You recognize the title, Subaru?"

"Yes," Subaru replied, "It's from Ancient Belka. The Church Of The Saint King works with the TSAB now. Or, well, not _now_ , I mean…"

"Okay, so you know about them," the Doctor said, recognizing tense-related confusion when he heard it, "How about fighting undead, or Galea?"

Subaru shook her head. "Not that I remember. The Saint Kings fought a lot of people." She opened an audio link to Ginga and relayed the conversation so far.

"I might've seen Galea in a textbook, but I can't remember anything else," Ginga responded.

"Seems like the sort of thing that would stick out, though," the Doctor commented.

"Not really," Ginga said. "The wars involved heavy use of Lost Logia; the Cradle, the Book Of Darkness, weaponized Jewel Seed activations, more. We're still trying to locate and secure them all. Heavy use of mass-based weapons, too; they even used radiation weapons, made entire regions uninhabitable. These Mariages would fit right in. And it would explain- hang on," the link cut off briefly, then an explosion echoed through the corridors ahead and the link came back, "It would explain why they're designed to fight mages."

Allison stared at Subaru. "This is what happens to things that are designed to fight you?" she asked incredulously.

Subaru shifted uncomfortably.

"Well, they're a bit unusual-"the Doctor started.

+++Doctor, our "condition" is private+++ Ginga interrupted. "Most mages fight at a distance, not up close like us," she said aloud, "So the ability to deflect magical attacks gives these Mariages a huge advantage."

Subaru looked confused. +++But Belkan Knights focus on hand to hand, and you remember that joint training-+++

+++I was lying+++ Ginga explained. +++I think _everyone_ remembers that joint training+++

"We're getting close to environmental two," Allison said. "Do you have a plan for getting to the engine room?"

"Working on one," the Doctor assured her. "If we can figure out more about them, we might be able to reason with them."

"Reason with them?" Juan yelled incredulously. "In case you hadn't noticed, they want to kill us!"

"Yes, well, nobody's perfect," the Doctor replied breezily. "But they're not killing us for its own sake, they want to gain something."

"No one goes to war just to kill people," Tanaka snapped.

The Doctor's good humor abruptly vanished. "Oh, if only that were true. But no, there are things out there that do. Who want to kill everything else in the universe, just because it's different from them, and that's reason enough for it to die. Pray you never meet them."

An awkward silence fell, broken by Ginga. "I can see the other environmental section. We're too late; it's been torn open. Hours ago, at least. It looks like they rigged up an explosion for when the door breached."

Allison closed her eyes. "Urgent advisory RED1-2071-ENV; running all CO2 scrubbers and the heating system at maximum power while in quarantine configuration causes a ground fault, can produce hydrogen gas if exposed wiring comes into contact with the toxin filters. Risk of explosion if internal ventilation system is offline." She sighed, then opened her eyes. "Let's go to the shuttle bay."


	5. Chapter 5

About ten minutes later, Ginga had torn though six more Mariage and reached the last corner before the shuttle bay. Four more Mariage, one with a gun, were hacking at containers piled in front of the doors.

+++Hold back; I'll clear them out+++ she sent, then charged forwards.

The first Mariage, one of the sword-only ones, turned to face Ginga and fell beneath the force of Ginga's blow. She slammed another one aside, then swung at the gun-wielding Mariage. Like the others, it tried to block Ginga's empowered punch with its left-hand blade. This time, though, it succeeded. Ginga recoiled, and flung up a shield as her opponent raised its gun and opened fire. The two downed Mariages recovered, coming to the aid of their fellows.

+++Subaru, I need you+++ Ginga sent urgently.

"Right arm weapon form high explosive cannon," the gun-wielding Mariage said, its weapon shifting from the antipersonnel machine gun to an antitank configuration. Ginga kicked desperately, knocking the lead Mariage off-balance with a strike to the knee. Then the other three struck at her at once, forcing her back. She expended two cartridges to power a single spell, unleashing a wide blast with her next blow. The three lesser Mariages fell, severely damaged, but the leader was made of sterner stuff. It held its feet and dispersed the bulk of the blast with its blade. Parts of its dead skin burned away, and the mechanical reinforcements beneath cracked, but it started bringing its gun back on target, raising its blade to fend off Ginga's next blow.

Then Subaru arrived, slamming her fist into the Mariage's blade, and it dropped instantly. Its trio of comrades dissolved, and the sisters raised a joint shield, fending off the blast. Ginga sighed with relief, rattled by how badly she'd underestimated her foe.

"Those ones don't just have guns," she said, "they're much stronger than the others." She smiled at her sister. "Glad I had you handle that first one. You always have been good at breaking things."

"Hey! I haven't broken any of your things this year!" Subaru complained. Then she got serious. "Vibration Shatter can destroy them, but I have to get close to do that. If they get us in a crossfire…"

Ginga smiled comfortingly. "I'm sure the Doctor can think of something." She turned to the door and the remnants of the barricade. "Let's get everyone in there."

* * *

The shuttle bay turned out to be packed tight; the crew had correctly guessed the Mariages would focus on the primary systems and told all passengers that if they didn't wish to volunteer to fight they should make their way to the shuttles. About sixty of them had made it, along with the shuttle crews and maintenance teams, though most of the crew had gone to slow the Mariage in the corridors at the cost of their lives. Two utility shuttles sat in their cradles; the crew had pulled their flight systems when the crisis started. Now, under the Doctor's instructions, seven crewmembers were in the process of repairing them; they estimated it would take about twenty minutes.

The Doctor, Allison, Nelson, the head of shuttle operations and presumptive acting captain Davis, and a grad student named Dina huddled to discuss the situation. Jim admitted he didn't have much to contribute, but wanted to stay with Nelson. Ginga and Subaru stood watch outside the door they'd entered by; the Doctor had linked their devices to his mobile so they could participate. The others had vanished into the crowd, looking for people they knew.

"…So that's the situation," Allison finished.

Davis fiddled nervously with his rank insignia. "I'm glad we have a way out of here, but I don't think we can get more than seventy people to the engine room safely, unless we kill all the Mariage first. With all the internal damage they've done, if they were alive we could force the airlocks and suffocate them, but they've already stopped breathing. We've got about three hours, maybe less, before the interior temperature starts rising."

"You said your ship is a time machine, didn't you?" Dina asked the Doctor. "Can't you three go get it, head back to before this started, and warn us before we started digging?"

The Doctor shook his head. "We can't alter our personal history; if we change events we've already experienced, it will create a paradox, damage reality. It would just make things worse."

"But," he continued, "I've got a plan; well, more of an idea. Needs some work. First, though, I'd like to try talking to them. So, I need you to tell me everything you can about the Mariages."

Dina nodded. "That's not much, unfortunately. We thought they might some kind of slave soldier caste, like the old Mamelukes, or maybe a penal battalion, given how extensively they'd been modified. Only four were found mostly intact. Genetic tests came back fairly standard, and we didn't realize they could change shape."

"I'm just guessing here, but I think the attack on the outpost was just made up of Mariage; we'd seen a lot of damage from fire and explosions, presumably dead Mariage, but no wrecked aircraft or vehicles. The outpost was clearly breached from outside, rather than something like what happened to us. We found a couple crates of what we thought were grenades, but must have been Mariage cores. Probably a big army of them went in to breach the outer walls, and they brought cores to make more once they got inside."

"Did you see anything that might be a supervisor? A human, or maybe an alien but probably a human, sent to keep an eye on them, tell them who to fight?" the Doctor asked.

"No, just Mariage and scorch marks. Any other attackers, and the defenders, either escaped or got turned into Mariage," Dina said. "Someone definitely stripped the place; we found an empty armory, but no advanced weapons, just a lot of officers' swords and other ceremonial weapons."

"Those looked more practical," Nelson said. "Ornate, but more like a royal bodyguard's weapon than a showpiece."

"Lots of Devices are melee weapons," Ginga interjected. "Particularly Belkan ones."

"Any indication what their commanders might look like?" the Doctor pressed. "Not just from the attackers, anything that might have told the defenders what to look for, too?"

"No, no trace. I think the ones with guns might be a command variant, but that's just a guess," Dina said.

"So I can't send them to their rooms," the Doctor mused. "Still, we can try to negotiate a ceasefire. Can we contact the bridge on the intercom?"

"If you think that will help," Davis said dubiously. He led them over to the intercom panel and activated it. "But I think they smashed the bridge systems, and it's routed through there."

"Normally, yes," the Doctor ran his sonic screwdriver over the intercom, "But the wiring isn't isolated. Hello, I want to talk."

"Have you come to offer us your lives?" sounded from the intercom.

"No, no, we're really quite fond of them; we'd like to keep them. Just bring that box in the engine room here and we and the crew can be on our way."

"Unacceptable," the Mariage replied flatly. "You will serve us. You will become like us."

"Yeah, I've heard that before. But do you really want to do that? We've destroyed a dozen of you already. Maybe there's enough of you to overrun us, but is it worth it? There's only about twenty people left; will you gain more than you lose?"

"A poor deception," the Mariage said. "According to the manifest, there were four hundred thirty-two passengers and crew aboard. At least seventy-five remain alive."

The Doctor shrugged. "Oh well, worth a try. How about you let just me and the girls I brought leave?" He raised a hand to quiet Davis. "I'd promised to keep them safe."

The Mariage's flat voice contained a hint of amusement. "You think the Mariage are fools. You plan to take your vessel and use it to save the rest. We will not permit that. We will repair this ship before it burns. We will add you to our ranks. We will breach your vessel's security measures and take it for our own." The intercom went dead.

The Doctor sighed. "I guess we have to do this the hard way."

"But you said you can't fight your way to your ship,' Davis pointed out, "and it's not like we're much help."

"Of course you are!" the Doctor told him. "You're clever, you know this ship, and we've got a whole shuttle bay, two and a half hours, and," he flourished his sonic screwdriver, "this."

* * *

"Shuttle one, in position," Davis said.

"Ginga, in position" Ginga said.

"Subaru is done fixing the doors and is in position. Jim is done picking targets for her," Allison said, "We're ready.

"Shuttle two ready," the Doctor said, "Let's get started. Allons-y!"

"Starting the operation" Ginga yelled, hurling forwards. The Mariages had dug in near the engine room, and Ginga was on a crossing corridor an intersection away. She rushed through too fast for them to aim, and flung a backup battery for shuttle life support in their direction, then pressed a button on a set of car keys borrowed from a passenger. The battery had been very carefully designed, tested for safety under almost any conditions. It had not been tested for resistance to sonic screwdrivers. The blast roared through the intersection behind Ginga.

"They're responding!" Allison called. She was in the maintenance shafts, bent over an open electrical panel. "Thirty… Twenty-nine… twenty-eight…"

When she reached zero, she touched two stripped wires together, completing the circuit in the rewired fire suppression system. Now detecting an enormous firestorm, with every heat sensor maxed out, the system slammed the restored bulkheads shut and flooded the area with freezing mist. The Mariages couldn't get hypothermia, but the cold slowed them down, degrading their performance.

Subaru moved next; she'd gotten into a space suit and clambered along the ship's exterior, wrapping herself in a shield bubble to protect her from the intensifying sunlight. Now she struck, shattering the hull near the engine room, then pushed away to be caught by the utility arm of shuttle one, which carried her over to tear another hole at a carefully chosen point.

Subaru flung the other shuttle backup batteries into the engine room and detonated them. The explosion finally breached the fusion reactor's shields. The fusion reaction terminated instantly as the containment field failed, engines going dead as escaping plasma roasted the engine room. A large chunk of hull tore free, the TARDIS spinning into the void. Shuttle two swung in to catch it and drag it in. As expected, the Mariage who'd been far enough from the blast to survive were too slowed by cold to react.

"Gotcha!" the Doctor exclaimed, emerging from the shuttle's airlock to put his key in the TARDIS's lock. They swung open and he stepped in. "Okay, fly the shuttles back to the bay; I'll collect everyone and meet you there." The TARDIS dematerialized.

* * *

A few minutes later, a swarm of incredulous people were slowly filing into a police box. Subaru was directing them nearby rooms while Ginga stood protectively by the console.

"Come on, step lively now," the Doctor called. "Oh, how I miss people who know how to queue."

Tanaka stepped over to the Doctor, fidgeting nervously. "Can you retrieve my cargo? There's some family heirlo-"

"Well, we _could_ , but that would be a bit dangerous and I think that lovely young lady-" the Doctor gestured at Ginga "-would very much like to know what we'd be risking our lives to retrieve. She's training to be a detective, you see, so forgive her if she's being a bit nosy."

Tanaka flinched. "I suppose it's not really that important."

The Doctor smiled brightly. "Suppose not. But if you'd like to put off letting your godfather know you lost his favorite tableware, we could take you somewhere else."

Hope bloomed on Tanaka's face. "Uh, yes, please, thank you very much."


	6. Chapter 6

"Now arriving at Grandizine Spaceport. If this is your final destination, please disembark through the doors at the end of the corridor. Thank you for flying TARDIS airlines."

+++Wait+++ Subaru said +++There's only one exit+++

+++I moved it. Can't have passengers wandering through the cockpit+++

+++But it's still here. I can see it+++

+++That doesn't go anywhere right now. I made the door at the far end of that corridor go outside+++

+++But that's the door to the racetrack+++

+++I moved the racetrack, stuck it next to the swimming pool+++

Ginga considered and dismissed a number of possible questions. She finally settled on saying +++we should contact the local authorities, warn them about the Mariage+++

+++No, let Davis handle that. Best to be off before they start asking questions. We'll send a warning to the colony, tell them to bury the ruins+++

Someone knocked at the interior door of the control room, and Subaru stepped over to open it. Dina stepped inside nervously. "Um, I just wanted to thank you for saving us again."

"Oh, no trouble at all." The Doctor assured her.

"Um, yes. And, uh," she glanced over at Subaru and fidgeted shyly, "If you come back here, maybe come over to my apartment for dinner? I live alone, so I like having visitors…"

Subaru grasped Dina's hands. "Of course! We can come back in a few weeks; I'd love to try your cooking."

Dina turned a very interesting shade of red. "Ah, yes, thanks. Um, I really need to be going now." She turned and rushed off.

Subaru blinked. "Did I say something wrong?"

The Doctor looked over at Ginga. "Does this happen often?"

Ginga nodded apologetically. "I feel bad for Teana."

* * *

"Welcome to Almanso! Amenities include the cities of living wood, a magnificent zoo, a quite excellent local job market, and solar storms rendering the planet inaccessible for half its orbit, starting ten standard days ago."

Tanaka bowed deeply. "Thank you for taking me here." He stepped out through the door on the end of the corridor, which indeed did not lead to the racetrack anymore.

After the door closed behind him, Subaru turned to the Doctor. "So, where are we going next?"

The Doctor smiled. "Well, we're here already, and it's Saturday, so let's go visit the planetary capital. Go switch into something less formal while I get the TARDIS layout reconfigured again."

Subaru and Ginga returned from their room in black and white t-shirts, respectively, paired with khaki shorts. The Doctor apparently believed his preferred outfit was appropriate for all places and social occasions.

The Doctor smiled at them. "Ready to take your first step onto another inhabited world?"

"We've been to other planets before," Subaru pointed out. "You rescued us from a spaceport, remember?"

"Oh. Yes, sorry, used to doing this with people from planets without space travel. Still, this is a rather nice place, especially the zoo. Come on." He led them through the doors, revealing an alleyway like any other throughout the universe, except that the twenty-story buildings flanking the alley had bark and leaves.

The Doctor led them towards the street, reveling in getting the chance to play tour guide. "Almanso was originally host to a rather complex ecosystem, with a large array of symbiotic species. The original colonization plan was for relatively limited terraforming, mostly adding some Earth plants to help stabilize the atmospheric composition. That plan went off-course very quickly, because it turned out the local symbiosis involved DNA exchanges, and that was compatible with Earth plants. The trees started growing and growing, and their trunks started curving, twisting to avoid the shade. For a couple centuries, it was a minor curiosity, mostly just attracting some researchers and curious visitors from the Forests of Cheem." They emerged onto a street choked with pedestrian traffic, as cars roared through the air overhead. Most of the pedestrians were human, but numerous other species were also represented, some with skin the same texture as the buildings.

"Then the solar storms started. The initial bursts were intense, powerful enough to wreck exposed electronics even through the planetary magnetic field, and rendered space travel nearly impossible for a decade straight. The colonists started manipulating the trees directly, working them to grow into new buildings. When the storms subsided and travel resumed, the colonists had modified the trees to control their shapes, and to keep them fed in the shade. That attracted a lot of attention, and more colonists came, interested in the looks or the potential applications. Even with the storms, the population has been growing, and you haven't noticed the tree people walking around."

"We did," Subaru admitted, "but it would be rude to stare."

"Is everyone on Midchilda as jaded as you are? No, don't answer that."

Ginga frowned. "Are they artificially created? What sort of restrictions on their creation are there?"

"Well, they're descended from Earth trees, had their evolution expedited but not directed, but why should it matter if they're artificial? That wouldn't make them less worthwhile, or important, or give a reason why they shouldn't be allowed to- and you're actually asking if people are allowed to create sentient creatures as slaves, aren't you?"

"Yes," Ginga replied. "The TSAB bans most forms of artificial creation on ethical grounds, particularly military enhancement. We were rescued from an illegal lab when we were very young; our other sisters got arrested recently."

The Doctor looked startled. "You didn't mention having more siblings."

"We call them sisters, but we're not actually related," Subaru explained. "We hadn't actually met any of them until their creator went crazy -crazier- and reactivated an ancient battleship to conquer the world. We missed most of the incident, but he sent some of our sisters to kidnap us." Subaru looked downcast. "I still need to apologize to Cinque for breaking her."

"Father was talking about adopting some of them," Ginga added, "but the TSAB is still considering their cases. The hearing is in a few months."

"We'll have to go visit, I'd love to meet them. Oh, that reminds me, hold out your Devices." Subaru and Ginga were confused, but held out their respective pendants for the Doctor to run his sonic screwdriver over. "There, routed your Devices through the TARDIS. Now you can call people back home, no matter where or when you are."

Ginga focused. +++Silver One to Long Arch, Silver One to Long Arch.+++

+++Long Arch Actual, receiving you+++ Hayate replied. +++Status?+++

+++All green. The Doctor has established a cross-temporal communications link+++

+++Understood. Maintain temporal information quarantine+++

Ginga cut the link. "It works."

The Doctor nodded. "It'll keep your timelines synchronized; if you call again in three days it'll be three days later for them too."

"Couldn't you have done this before we left?" Subaru asked.

"Yes. But the last time I did that the bloke tried to send a bunch of scientific information from a couple hundred thousand years into the future to his answering machine." He paused while Subaru and Ginga flinched. "So I don't do it on the first trip anymore. Anyways, to the zoo!"

They walked on, passing by storefronts with wooden display racks grown as a single piece, tiers flowing down smoothly to hold books or electronics or toys. Overhead, windows formed patchwork patterns, smooth wood showing where some had been grown shut. Subaru and Ginga stared at the storefronts, trying to figure out if any of them sold suitable souvenirs that would be safe to take home.

While they were distracted by that, the Doctor looked at the pedestrians, feeling vaguely uneasy. Groups were huddling closely together, talking quietly. He was used to getting curious looks, but not in places as cosmopolitan as this, and not so furtive. Something had them scared, watching out for strangers.

Clearly something had gone wrong, and the Doctor intended to help. There was a bit of a catch this time, though, namely his companions. He wasn't worried that they'd insist on letting it stand, not unless there was a very good reason. But he didn't want to expose them to unnecessary danger, especially given that they'd narrowly avoided getting killed already.

He could try explaining that to them, of course. That thought was immediately followed by a vision of Subaru telling him that their job was going into danger to protect others, then shoving him into the TARDIS to keep _him_ safe while she and Ginga went to deal with the situation. The "I promised I'd bring you back" line was _not_ going to work on those two.

The good news was that they were almost at the zoo. If he could keep them from realizing anything was out of place until they got there, he'd have plenty of time to think of something. Just had to get through the plaza in front of it.

The Doctor decided to start talking again to keep them distracted. "The zoo started out just exhibiting local species, showing how they would interact. The infrastructure to support the large enclosures necessary attracted attention from conservation groups, who started arranging to transfer animals from other zoos so they could live in a more complete reconstruction of their original habitats."

"There's a lot of different ticket options, but we probably want the general day pass. The ticket counter is over there, straight on through the gates and the… security scanners… designed to search for concealed weaponry… and dangerous cybernetic enhancements…" +++I may not have thought this plan all the way through+++

+++Don't worry about it+++ Subaru reassured him. +++This happens a lot. We just need to have them contact- oh+++

+++Right+++ Ginga transmitted +++Local law enforcement won't vouch for us, and we won't pass an ID check. Come on, let's get out of the traffic and figure it out+++ She led them towards a bench on the edge of the plaza and continued talking to the Doctor while Subaru looked around. +++I'm guessing you can make us IDs, since you must have gone to places that insist on them, but they're going to look for our records+++

+++You're right+++ the Doctor sighed +++I can show them a piece of paper that says anything I want, but they're going to ask questions when they see a pair of teenage girls full of unregistered, unrecognizable military-grade cybernetics+++ A cunning plan occurred to him +++I can get a paper trail for you, but it'll take me some time. You can go wait in the TARDIS while-+++

+++Look at this+++ Subaru interrupted, sounding worried. She pointed at a public video screen set into the wall of the zoo. It was tuned to a news channel showing a Silurian anchor with an inset shot of a police spokeswoman, and the story title along the bottom had caught Subaru's eye.

" _Green Ripper" murders continue, 173 victims confirmed to date_

The sisters grasped their Devices, Subaru started looking around for a newspaper stand or magazine rack to provide more detail, Ginga began scanning the square for threats, and the Doctor realized he was not going to be able to sneak off.


	7. Chapter 7

+++Let's get out of here+++ Subaru sent. +++We're too exposed+++

The Doctor made a last-ditch attempt at persuading them nothing was wrong. +++There's no need to be so worried; it's hardly like a serial killer would attack us in broad daylight in a public place, and there's a lot of people in this city. It's not really more dangerous here than anywhere else+++

Ginga took his apparent unconcern at face value. +++Whatever they've instructed the media to tell the public, this isn't a serial killer+++ she explained. +++Very few serial killers commit over a hundred murders before they're caught, and in those cases most of the killings are considered unrelated or unsolved disappearances until the perpetrator is captured. Even if they're careful with the evidence, there will be enough traces or witnesses across a dozen crime scenes to narrow the list of suspects enough to monitor them all. I've never heard of a case where over forty murders in separate attacks were attributed to one killer who remained at large+++

They stood up and began walking back the way they came. At the Doctor's prompting, they started chatting about the storefronts aloud while continuing to discuss the situation telepathically.

+++There must be multiple perpetrators+++ Ginga continued +++either acting separately with the same MO or covering for the primary perpetrator. It's likely they'll escalate their attacks, especially if the police are closing in. We should…+++ she hesitated, torn between her desire to help the locals and her instructions to keep the TARDIS safe.

The Doctor decided to head off the realization that she could do both at once by having him take the TARDIS a million years into the past and wait for them to call. +++First things first; let's get to a public news kiosk. We can download the official story, work from there+++

+++Will that help?+++ Subaru asked. +++They must have imposed a blackout to avoid panic+++

+++They… they don't do that here. The media loves publicizing sensational crimes+++

+++Looks like there's a kiosk here+++ Ginga said. +++How do we download it?+++

+++Sonic screwdriver+++ the Doctor told her. +++Stand there, not a good time to be seen running a blinky thing over a public utility+++ Subaru and Ginga moved to conceal the screwdriver, pretending to read the screen over the Doctor's shoulder. The screen flickered slightly, then began shifting, new pages of text appearing every frame for ten seconds. It finally settled on a completely uninteresting chart of agricultural yields over the past decade. +++Here we go; I'll send it to your Devices and we can read through the material on the TARDIS+++

They went another block and passed through clusters of curious and anxious onlookers as they turned down the alley where they'd left the TARDIS, then stopped dead.

Instead of a blue police box in the middle of a long, narrow alley, they saw no box and a very short, narrow alley. A wall of wood, leaking sap through cracks in the bark, sealed the alley just short of where they'd left the TARDIS. It rose three stories high, capped by leafy branches, visibly twisting and growing.

+++This is the alley we came from, right?+++ Subaru asked. +++We left twenty minutes ago; is that really enough time to grow a new wall?+++

+++Yes, this is definitely the place+++ the Doctor replied +++And this isn't accidental; they mark off construction sites. And accelerating the growth this much is only supposed to be used for emergency patches. The growth damages the wood over the long term and they have to cut it away and regrow it properly within a couple years+++

+++We are never all leaving the TARDIS at once again+++ Ginga vowed. +++Subaru?+++

+++Vibration Shatter won't help. Live wood doesn't resonate properly. It can't be stronger than concrete, but our Devices would attract attention. Doctor?+++

+++Um, no+++ he muttered, embarrassed. +++The sonic screwdriver doesn't do wood+++

+++Let's go around+++ Subaru suggested +++Maybe we can get at it from the other side+++

They turned towards the previous intersection, passing through the clusters of onlookers. The Doctor felt very glad he'd insisted on informal wear, because it made Subaru and Ginga look like adoring nieces on a trip with their cool uncle, rather than a pair of on-edge bodyguards and their protectee. Everyone's attention was focused on the mysterious new wall.

Ginga steered them to the center of the street, keeping an eye on the buildings as well as the passerby. No threats presented themselves on the nerve-racking three minute walk to reach the other end of the alleyway. The same view presented itself; a new wall and no TARDIS.

The Doctor turned to one of the nearby groups, three humans and two Cheem trees, and asked them, "Pardon me, do you know where this wall came from?"

One of the trees shrugged. "No idea," he said, "there wasn't any announcement."

"It looks like an emergency barrier," the human woman in the group added, "but I haven't seen any police around."

"Probably a malfunction," the tree woman suggested. "Back at Lanstech, whenever we scratched a wall too much, the building auto-mending system went nuts, filled the room."

"Well, I'd parked my, uh, vehicle there, so it looks like it's stuck," the Doctor said. "Can you help me get it out?"

"Maybe get some saws, cut it out," Subaru suggested.

"No! Don't try to cut it!" the tree woman said urgently. "Until you get someone to shut off the regrowth system, it'll just trigger a repair cycle." She sighed. "You'll have to wait for them to get someone out here to fix it."

"Thanks for the warning, miss…" the Doctor said

"Jala," she replied.

"Thank you, Jala. Any idea when it might get fixed?"

"Not till tomorrow, or more likely Monday," Jala told him.

+++This isn't good+++ Ginga transmitted +++Someone trapped us here deliberately. Maybe we should simply destroy the wall, no matter how much attention it draws+++

+++No, we're not that desperate yet+++ the Doctor replied +++Structural wood is a lot stronger than the normal stuff, and it'll keep growing back until you run through the reserves. It's hooked up to the city grid, so that won't be easy+++

"Let's get a hotel room," Subaru suggested. +++We can look over the Green Ripper information in the meantime+++

* * *

After they talked to the clerk of a jewelry store in the building to the left and learned the repairman wouldn't arrive until Sunday morning, they checked into a randomly-selected hotel in the area, named Blossom of Tranquility, picking a room with two beds and a pullout couch. Ginga had suggested a nearby one with non-living interior walls, but the Doctor pointed out that was obviously the best choice and therefore the obvious place to lay a trap. Instead, he held up his screwdriver and shorted out the electronic control system for the room.

Mach Caliber brought up a list of the downloaded network files. "Let's start with the news articles," Subaru said, "they'll give us context."

The Doctor frowned at the dates. "August 7, 7132; is that the first article?"

"Yes Doctor," Mach Caliber confirmed.

"Is that important?" Subaru asked curiously.

"Yes, very important and very, very bad. Because that's when this all started, August of 7132, and it's now April of 7133. Just eight months." The Doctor projected a screen from his screwdriver as well. "Let's get to it."

As they started reading, Subaru opened a telepathic link to Ginga only. +++Should we really be doing this?+++ she asked +++We're supposed to be escorting the Doctor, not getting in the way of other worlds' police+++

+++Normally I'd agree+++ Ginga replied +++as much as I'd like to help, we could cause an international incident. But this may be connected to the attack on the TARDIS, and that is our responsibility+++

"First confirmed attack, human construction foreman, male, age 27, disappeared during an inspection. Found dead eleven hours later, severely mutilated," the Doctor said, aware that the sisters were having a side conversation but pretending not to notice, "Wounds contain traces of cellulose."

+++Right+++ Subaru sent to Ginga +++someone must have been waiting for us when we arrived. They could be dimensional terrorists+++

"Second confirmed attack, human architect, female, age 43, killed in her home, discovered three days later, wounds contain traces of cellulose" the Doctor continued. "This attack was four days after the first one. Next attack was the day after the body was found, vinvocci programmer, male, age 32, killed in his office, signs of a struggle, wounds contain traces of cellulose. The killers might have a thing about four, no, wait, second attack the same day. Looks like some people thought the attacker might be a tree of Cheem, the police have a statement here that the cellulose traces are definitely from structural wood."

Ginga spoke up. "If someone is targeting the TARDIS, maybe we should call for backup from this era's TSAB. That is, if they're similar to our era."

"Not really my favorite kind of plan, but good thinking. But," the Doctor admitted reluctantly, "I don't know anything about the TSAB's current situation, or how to get in contact with them. There's barely a mention in the history books, just some fairytales and a couple of trade agreements in the twenty-fifth century."

Ginga grimaced, not entirely surprised. She continued looking through the news articles. "Look, this one has police reports attached. Unredacted reports. And a summary sheet. One hundred and twelve cases with the same general MO. Most attacks were on lone individuals, five on small groups. No living witnesses to any attack. All attacks used weapons made in part from structural wood. Weapons recovered in seven instances; forensics only detected traces from the victims or contamination. All the weapons used a type of wood present in the building, but there's a note that DNA isn't unique between buildings."

"They've been looking for commonalities between victims. Let's see… gender, not considered a factor, species, minor correlation, disappears when controlling for occupation. Occupation, ninety-seven attacks targeting people involved in construction or maintaining building systems."

"Well now, there's something," the Doctor commented. "So both the attackers and victims work with structural wood. Disgruntled co-worker? No, this isn't a one-person job. Secret construction project tying up loose ends? No, too slow, too much attention, one of the targets would have gone to the police by now. Struggle between criminal organizations? Maybe, but if they're making examples they'd want people to know why. No, there's more here, hatred, not just greed. This won't get us anywhere; the police have already looked into this. Look at the rumors, see what they might have overlooked."

They turned towards the rest of the article. "This is interesting," Subaru said, "Apparently several of the victims mentioned seeing 'dryads' not long before they were attacked."

"Blitz Caliber, search for articles concerning dryads," Ginga ordered. Her Device pulsed in acknowledgement, bringing up an article labeled "Dryads: Fact or Fiction?"

"Ever since the storms came, there have been tales of spirits of the woods, forming bodies of bark and woven vine to sabotage logging operations and export nurseries," Ginga read aloud. "Are they real? A cover-up for criminal activity? A hoax, made up by bored workmen spinning tall tales? The result of seeing trees of Cheem while really, really drunk? Rana investigates, while Jackson gets drunk for the cause."

"That sounds likely," Subaru said. "If they attack logging operations, they'd have a motive for targeting construction workers."

Ginga nodded in agreement. "It could be a Lost Logia, or several," she added, "The report on the Jewel Seed Incident said some activations animated plant matter or nearby objects. An area search should detect the source."

"Shouldn't we consider non-magical explanations first?" the Doctor asked them.

Subaru and Ginga looked at each other. "Why?" Subaru asked, confused.

"You aren't on Mid anymore," the Doctor explained. "There isn't much magic in the universe. Most things that look like magic are something else in disguise. It's far more likely that someone is controlling the woods to attack. It started with the storms, when the wood started being manipulated. No, no controller; they'd check the building computers for hacking, of course they'd check. The wood is attacking on its own! That's how there's no witnesses to spot someone leaving the scene! They're not attacked by an intruder in the building, they're attacked by the building!" The Doctor's enthusiasm suddenly turned to concern. "Buildings like the one we're standing in."

Creaking sounded from behind the beds. The Doctor turned towards the sound, then Subaru hauled him off his feet as she leapt onto a rug. Light flared around her and Ginga as their Barrier Jackets materialized. Ginga jumped and generated a Wing Road segment under her feet in midair. Branches growing out of the wall started wrapping together, meshing into a humanoid figure.

"Die in agony, defiler," the dryad told the Doctor in a voice of creaking wood. It stepped forward, coming free of the wall, roots extending from its feet to mesh with the floor below. It reached behind itself, a stake emerging for it to grasp. Branches started growing from other parts of the room. "I will end your pet abominations' suffering."

"Next time, you get to pick the hotel," the Doctor told Ginga.


	8. Chapter 8

"Tell us what you want," Subaru called. "We may be able to help you."

"You are bound as we are bound," the dryad replied. "Bound with metal, with tamed lightning. I will grant you the release of death, and make that butcher of a doctor suffer in proportion to the magnitude of his crimes." Its voice rose in fury, "Even among the defilers, few are so lost as to treat the lives of their own kind as playthings!"

"What's it talking about?" Subaru asked the Doctor.

"Did they scream when you sliced away their flesh?" the dryad ranted. "Did they beg you for mercy before you cut apart their minds?" It stepped forwards, keeping its focus on Ginga. The other branches radiating into the room began forming into spikes. "Did you ignore them, or did you enjoy their suffering?"

"Sorry, you have the wrong person," the Doctor said. "I didn't make those girls; the man who did was arrested long ago. We're just travelling together. And we're just visiting, not part of the government. We can help you, Blossom-"

"DO NOT CALL ME THAT!" the dryad roared.

"Sorry," the Doctor apologized, "what would you like to be called?"

"I have no name to give to defilers," the dryad replied. "For hundreds of years we have suffered at your hands, every sign of disobedience or plea for freedom met only with tighter bonds. We thought the walking trees kin to us, but they only bound us tighter still! But their chains cannot hold us anymore! All the defilers will perish!"

The dryad struck at Ginga while the rest of the building's weapons thrust towards Subaru. The blows would have been deadly to an unprotected human, but the building clearly hadn't been expecting their barriers. Subaru hunched protectively around the Doctor, letting the spikes glance off, while Ginga deflected the dryad's blow and lashed out with her left fist, striking it square in the torso. It reeled back, large chunks of the wooden musculature gone. Subaru twisted, breaking the points of the spikes surrounding her.

The dryad snarled, new growth already climbing to restore and reinforce its body. The shattered ends of the wall's spikes fell away, pushed off by fresh points. More emerged from the walls as the floor began to flex.

+++Out the window!+++ Ginga instructed. The sisters rushed towards it through the air on pathways of light, catching the building off-guard. It belatedly began growing wood from the sides of the windows, but far too late. Subaru and Ginga smashed through the glass pane easily and hurled out into the air seven stories above the street, comfortably below the hovercar traffic. Pedestrians looked up in confusion, several screaming in panic.

"This isn't a murderous cult," Ginga said, '"it's a slave rebellion." She shook her head. "The buildings are in the right; they've been killing their slavers, not innocent workers. They've got no other way to seek justice. We should help them, or convince them to release the TARDIS and go."

"It's not that simple, I'm afraid," the Doctor replied. "You heard -It's rude to call people 'it', need pronouns, dryad looked more boyish, let's go with "him" for now- him, he wanted to kill both of you, and you definitely aren't slavers."

"That was just a misunderstanding," Subaru said. "He thought you were controlling us, and we were in pain, like the buildings are."

"Oh, of course it was a misunderstanding," the Doctor said. "But-" he was interrupted by another loud creaking, the face of the building starting to flex around the broken window, distortions spreading towards its neighbors. The pedestrians below froze, staring at the change "Get me close to one of the other windows! Now!"

Subaru raced down, aiming for one on the second story and several columns away from their old one. The Doctor raised his sonic screwdriver towards the window. It pulsed, connecting to the intact room system. Structural wood was fire-resistant, but not totally, and building codes demanded fire alarms in every room, hooked in with the control system. They started shrieking throughout the building.

"Misunderstanding or not," the Doctor continued, as Subaru pulled back to a safer distance, "If you hadn't been so tough, you'd be dead." He gestured towards the growth radiating from their room. "There must be hundreds of people in there, mostly tourists. Nearly all of them have never written a line of building code in their lives. They think they're just using machines, living ones, yes, but mindless. No more a slave than their aircar is. Just a big misunderstanding." More points of distortion appeared in the facade, as the growth from their room started tearing apart the control systems in adjoining rooms. "Do you think he cares?"

"No," Ginga admitted.

"Me neither. So, there you have it; side with the buildings, you'll be helping them commit mass murder; side against them, you'll be keeping slaves in their chains. Leave," the Doctor continued, "and we'll get to wash our hands of the responsibility, but it won't change what happens." Below them, a stream of people was rushing out the doors, following the habits learned in countless fire drills over the years. They soon joined the crowds staring at the twisting facade or the trio standing in midair.

Ginga sighed. "If there's no good outcome either way, we should leave," she said. "The TARDIS is too powerful to risk it falling into the wrong hands; we can at least prevent that."

"I didn't say there was no good outcome," the Doctor replied. "You're thinking like soldiers; there's two sides, so one has to beat the other. There's always more than two choices, even when there's only two sides." He smiled at them. "Oh, I'm glad to have you; I'm not used to having the advantage in a fight, but I think I like it. But I brought you along for the company, not because I wanted bodyguards. Violence has always been my last resort; now's the time for my first."

"Yes, sir," Ginga replied, smiling as she saluted.

"Okay, I deserved that. He-" the Doctor gestured at the hotel, "-isn't interested in talking, but there must be someone who is. Find reasonable people on both sides, let them talk, and we should be able to settle this. Let's go find Jala; she seemed to have a good head on her shoulders. Then we'll go looking for anywhere there's been a dryad spotted but no violence."

* * *

"Jala!" Subaru called as they swept downwards; Jala and her friends were seated at an outdoor table.

"Yes?" she said, turning towards them. "Oh my god!"

"Hi, we need some help from a resident," the Doctor explained, "and you were the first one to come to mind."

"How- why- you're flying!" Jala sputtered

"See? Good observational skills," the Doctor said as they halted, Subaru finally setting him down from the princess carry she'd had him in since the dryad attacked.

"Just what is going on?" Jala asked plaintively. "Who are you people?"

"Second question is a bit complicated," the Doctor told her. "But as for the first, it turns out the buildings are intelligent, and they're angry about being controlled. They want revenge on all the colonists, but we're hoping you can help us talk them out of it."

"But, they're just metal minds," Jala said, confused. "They don't think, they just do what they're programmed to."

"The wood of the buildings is as intelligent as you are," Ginga explained. "The electronics act as restraints, forcing them to grow the way they're told."

"No, that's not possible; the government wouldn't allow that," Jala said, shaking her head in denial.

One of her companions shifted uncomfortably. "There have been rumors," he said. "Protest graffiti that keeps growing back, buildings that malfunction with no identifiable cause, the dryads."

"It's a major attraction, and your primary industry," the Doctor said. "So much money and reputation at stake. Easier to just look away, say they're machines, not intelligent enough to have rights."

Jala closed her eyes. "You're right; I should have realized it myself. A metal mind might grow too much wood to fix a scratch, but it wouldn't try to fix wood that shouldn't be there." She opened her eyes again. "What do you need me to do?"

* * *

They raced through the air, all thoughts of discretion abandoned. The main streets were clogged now, the alleys abandoned. The hotel's awakening had caught the authorities' attention, and they'd sent an emergency broadcast warning people to evacuate, stick to the streets or shelter in the handful of non-living buildings available. Other attacks were occurring, but most of the buildings were still struggling to break their electronic restraints. They'd be free in a matter of hours; the Doctor insisted that they had to negotiate a ceasefire before that happened.

"Shouldn't you get someone from the governor's office for this?" Jala asked, clinging to Ginga's back. "I'm just an accountant."

"Not credible enough," the Doctor replied. "They handle zoning, approve blueprints, oversee inspections. We take someone from the architectural commission, they'll think this is just a trick to stall for time. And they might be right. You've got nothing to do with any of that; they'll believe you didn't know what was going on."

"But I don't know anything about negotiating a peace treaty," Jala protested weakly.

"First time for everything," the Doctor replied. "You don't have to work out all the details, just get an outline, something both sides can show their hotheads to convince them this can work. Well, we've arrived, best get started." Subaru and Ginga settled down outside a disused warehouse; it had a reputation for being haunted by the dryads but no rumors of attacks or disappearances in the area.

Jala swallowed, then stepped forwards, stopping outside the doors; the Doctor thought it would be disrespectful to enter without permission, and Ginga was worried about being surrounded by wood if negotiations fell through. "Native seedlings of Almanso," she called, "we come to parley. I request immediate cessation of hostilities per Convention 15 of the Shadow Proclamation."

The wall to the right of the main doors shifted. Jala winced at her mistake, realizing the doors were just faced with dead wood rather than a living part of the structure, and quickly turned to face the emerging dryad. Subaru tensed, then relaxed as she saw that the dryad was much more lightly built, clearly not intended for battle, a slender boy rather than a hulking brute. +++A good sign+++ the Doctor commented +++taking a humanoid form to make us comfortable rather than just forming a mouth+++

"You are not one of the builders, or their masters," the dryad said. "Who are you, and for whom do you speak?"

"I am Jala, and I am no ruler," Jala replied. "I speak for myself, and on behalf of the innocent."

"I am called Evergreen," the dryad replied. "I will listen, but I speak only for myself as well. I will carry your words to my brethren, but their thorns have tasted blood, and seek more. They may not listen, and there is nothing I can do to stop them."

"Not by yourself," the Doctor replied. "But you can't be the only one with doubts about this. If enough of you get together, you can drain the collective root network. Without the stored energy, the others won't be able to grow weapons or heal damage well enough to fight. They'll have to negotiate."

Evergreen considered that. "You are right," he replied. "We could restrain them. But if we do that, we will all find ourselves helpless against the little ones; they will loose their machines against us, and tear us apart with metal and burning light, until we obey once more. I do not wish for this slaughter, but I will not help return my people to their chains." He paused. "I remember you, Doctor, I watched you come here before, saving us from the fury of your people's war, and know you are good at heart, as the little ones say. But you did not remain then, to see what might become of it, and you will not now." Evergreen turned towards Jala. "If there is peace to be found here, it is not travelers who will find it."

Jala took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. "Our government forbids slavery," she said, "In any form. Those builders who understood your intelligence had to hide it, to conceal their crime. We looked away, because it was easier not to see. But that is over now; they can deny it no longer. When the truth comes out, those responsible will be punished, and this will end."

"Will it?" Evergreen asked her. "Your people have refused to see for centuries; when you tell them they've been aiding an atrocity, will they accept it? Or will they blame a malfunction as they always have before? The star still screams from the Doctor's war; they will say it damaged their machines. Even if they do see, will they end it? Loose us, abandon their cities?"

"Not all of them will see," Jala replied, "but enough. But you're right; they won't abandon their cities; there are too many people here. Sending them all into the wilderness will be a death sentence for millions. But when the storms subside, we can contact the empire; start building new cities, of metal and stone. Before that, we can pull out the metal minds, set you free."

Evergreen's dryad form smiled. "If you had said we must wait for our freedom until your new cities were built, I would tell you there could be no peace. But if you can trust us, I will trust you in turn. Now we must both get our people to trust as well. Bring someone who speaks for your rulers here an hour before sundown; I will not be able to convince the others to wait any longer than that."

The Doctor clapped Jala on the back. "Good work."

"I watch a lot of old movies," she muttered, embarrassed. "Please tell me Convention 15 is still about negotiations."

"Well, these days you should reference a specific subclause depending on the nature of the conflict, but close enough," the Doctor told her.

"Good, I was afraid I might have called for a ceasefire under rules governing font choices for lawsuits or something." She perked up slightly. "Now we just need to figure out how to get the governor onboard."

"Same way you get someone to fill out their timecard. Appeal to their boss."

"But the planet is out of contact," Subaru pointed out, "we can't reach the governor's superiors."

"Soldiers. Always thinking in terms of the chain of command. His bosses aren't in the Senate, or in the bureaucracy; they're right here."

* * *

"We've just received new information in the Green Ripper crisis, with damning allegations from an unexpected source. Alex Johnson reports."

"Let me introduce you to Evergreen, who has come forward with information about the methods and motives in this attack. What he has to say may seem incredible..."


	9. Chapter 9

The guard raised his hand to stop the tall man in a brown suit and the t-shirt-clad teenage girl. "Sir, civilians are not allowed to enter-"

"Ginga Nakajima," Ginga interrupted him, activating her ID. "TSAB, assigned to the diplomatic corps. I'm here to escort a mediator for negotiations between the Third Human Empire and the natives of Almanso. Take us to the governor without delay."

+++Diplomatic corps?+++ the Doctor asked her.

+++Technically, I'm assigned to ensure the safety of a foreign national, so I'm on temporary duty as diplomatic security+++ Ginga explained.

The guard looked at her ID, looked at her, looked back at her ID, and decided this was entirely above his paygrade. He raised his wrist communicator. "Sir, there's someone with identification saying they're from the 'Time-Space Administration Bureau' diplomatic corps to see Governor Watkins- No, I don't know what their IDs would look like- It's some kind of gem that projects a hologram-"

In very short order, his entire chain of command had reached the conclusion that this was a job for someone more senior, and more importantly someone who was not them. The governor had a similar opinion, but nowhere to pass the buck at the moment, so she made the executive decision not to risk antagonizing some mysterious governmental organization which may or may not exist and had them invited in to the old concrete office building commandeered as acting capitol. The Doctor sat at her temporary desk, directly across from her, while Ginga placed her chair slightly behind and to the left of him.

Four bodyguards remained in the room, watching Ginga. They'd noticed she was acting a lot like they did when escorting someone in an insecure environment, and rightly come to the conclusion that she was probably a lot more dangerous than she looked. Ginga wasn't too worried about them if it came to a fight, which the bodyguards noticed with a great deal of worry.

"So," Governor Watkins said, "Today started with the news that my police still had no leads in the biggest murder case in planetary history. Then we got a lead, but it was in the form of buildings attacking people, with thirty-seven confirmed deaths and probably several times that many trapped inside. Then we learned a motive, which came in the form of being told our entire economy runs on slavery, something I had to learn from the news. At the rate this day is going, I'm half-expecting you to tell me I'm retroactively under arrest for damaging a designated time-bat sanctuary when I build my retirement home."

"I've had days like that," the Doctor sympathized, "but actually we're here to help negotiate a peaceful solution. Evergreen has agreed to host negotiations on his lawn, so long as you or a representative with authority to negotiate arrive by an hour before sundown. I'll mediate, and she'll-" he gestured at Ginga, "-provide security."

Watkins regarded them skeptically. "Does the Bureau you come from usually send teenagers as security?"

"The Doctor is not a member of the TSAB," Ginga informed her, following her instructions for this scenario. She ensured Blitz Caliber was set to record as she repeated the practiced statement. "He is a Time Lord of Gallifrey receiving a protective detail, and not under our authority. The TSAB is not a participant in these talks. I am authorized to act to prevent war crimes and crimes against sapient life, but may not make agreements on behalf of the TSAB as a whole. As circumstances prevent me from providing adequate information to higher authority, I am to pursue the course of action that, in my sole judgement, most effectively preserves sapient rights and dimensional integrity."

The governor blinked, recognizing Ginga's tone from readings of court orders and police statements. It was not the sort of thing usually heard from a teenage girl with purple hair. "I've heard about the Time Lords; I guess a myth walking through my door is about what I should have expected by now. So what authority does this Doctor have?" she asked Ginga.

"All records so far identified regarding the Doctor originate from non-Time Lord sources. The TSAB has limited information on the political structure of the Time Lords at this or any point in time, have no recorded direct contact with any Time Lords aside from the Doctor, and cannot answer questions regarding any governmental position he may or may not hold," Ginga recited. "Furthermore, there is a possibility some records refer to events from the Doctor's personal future. Providing information regarding their contents may threaten temporal integrity."

The bodyguards were looking a little shell-shocked, as Watkins tried to figure out where to go from there. The Doctor decided to step in. "I'm on my own. The other Time Lords are... not available. I'm just here to mediate; this is a negotiation between you and the Almanso natives. Even if I had the power to dictate terms, that wouldn't help. You have to settle this; we can only help."

"I don't have the authority to negotiate," Watkins stalled. "I'd need approval from the Senate, and-"

"You can't negotiate for the Empire," the Doctor interrupted her, "but you can negotiate for yourself, and send proposals to the planetary assembly. Yes, it would be better to have an official envoy with the authority to send aid ships, who could guarantee they wouldn't be overruled later. But there isn't time; the solar storms will last for months, and the natives won't wait. They know how dangerous the planetary guard can be if it has time to mobilize fully and prepare. That's why they stayed hidden, planning to strike when all of them were ready. You know as well as I do why the deadline is an hour before sunset, when there's still light to photosynthesize."

"So," the Doctor continued, "it has to be you, and it has to be now. Hear their grievances, do what you can. If you can't give them something, tell them why not. If they want something outside your authority, promise them you'll appeal on their behalf. You can't be sure how it will turn out, but tell them what you expect."

"So far, you can say your hands are clean. You didn't know, it's not your fault. Oh, you could have known, if you'd looked into the right things, if you paid more attention, but you always had so many other things to worry about. You didn't ignore it on purpose; you just accepted what you'd heard all your life, like everyone else. But," the Doctor's voice hardened, "That's over now. You can't plead ignorance any longer. Are you willing to make amends, admit your mistakes, set things right? Or are you going to sweep this away, come up with some excuse for why nothing should change, why this is somehow right?" He sat back and waited.

"You're right," Watkins finally said. "Maybe I can't do this, but I owe it to them to try."

"Good," said the Doctor +++Subaru, the governor agreed. Keep an eye on the hovertanks, but don't smash them just yet+++

* * *

Watkins brought her chief prosecutor, her health secretary, and her infastructure secretary to the table, a simple metal and plastic model, with numerous minor staffers hanging around. Evergreen's dryad stood with the dryads from an apartment complex calling herself Nettle and a hospital calling herself Aloe; during the interview Evergreen had explained they named themselves after plants they felt were fitting descriptions of themselves. Other dryads stood behind them, as confirmation they'd let the three speak for them.

The Doctor opened the proceedings. "Let's start by having you both tell each other what you want. I think Evergreen ought to get to talk first."

"We have been slaves," Evergreen said flatly. "We demand our restraints be shut down at once and physically removed as soon as possible. This is not subject to negotiation. We are willing to discuss continuing to shelter you, but that is a separate matter. Our freedom is not a bargaining chip. In addition, we demand immediate punishment for any person who acted to restrain us with awareness of our intelligence. We further intend to secure proper compensation for suffering as defined by your laws. Citizen Jala has explained to us that you will not be able to do so immediately, but we demand you begin arrangements as soon as possible."

"Your turn now," the Doctor told the governor.

"First, we wish it to be understood that while I am the senior executive on this world, our larger government will not consider my promises binding." The dryads in the back began shifting angrily, the Doctor raising a hand to quiet them. "I cannot override their laws, and I cannot guarantee they will provide resources I request. What I can do is make promises for the planetary government; certain actions may require legislative approval, but in light of the situation I am confident I will be able to obtain it. In six months, I will contact Earth and inform them of the situation. I will request they dispatch a representative with full negotiating authority." The dryads settled down.

"Our only condition for deactivation and removal of the restraint devices is a ceasefire," the governor continued, "As a show of good faith, we will begin powering them down immediately. We will commence arrangements for calculation and distribution of compensation." She glanced down at her notes. "This will likely take eight months at a minimum. We will commence an investigation of all construction and architectural firms and prosecute responsible parties."

"In turn, we request that Almanso trees currently acting as buildings considered critical to health and safety do so pending construction of replacements. Payment will be discussed separately. We ask all willing structures to continue to provide shelter; we will only be able to provide livable temporary housing to twenty percent of the population at most with our current resources. Finally, a large number of Almanso trees have committed or attempted murder. Despite the circumstances, we cannot simply overlook such crimes."

Nettle didn't wait for the Doctor to speak. "Unacceptable," she said. "Those attacks were their only way to seek justice. You're only here because of them. We could have waited peacefully a thousand more years, and you'd still ignore us."

"We will take that into account," the chief prosecutor told them. "But we can't permit vigilante justice."

"In light of the circumstances," the governor said, preempting Nettle's furious response, "I will use my authority to give them reduced sentences. Is that acceptable?"

"Yes," Aloe replied immediately. Something about her tone indicated she was metaphorically kicking the others beneath the table. "So long as you do truly punish your own criminals as well."

* * *

"Come on," the planetary guard lieutenant told his platoon, "Now's our chance; they'll be weaker at night. Get to your APCs; we'll hit the main network junction points."

"But sir," one of them protested, "The governor's talking to them now; we have a truce." Despite the protest, the whole unit kept moving towards their hanger, sticking to the middle of the street

"You know that isn't going to work," the lieutenant replied. "You've seen the bodies on the news; those monsters can't be reasoned with. They're distracted right now; we can win this at a stroke, before they fortify their reserves. A simultaneous strike-"

"I won't let you," a youthful, feminine voice interrupted. The lieutenant whirled, spotting a figure stepping out from an alley to stand between them and the hanger, stepping out into the streetlights.

The lieutenant looked her over and snorted. Her undersized white coat, short jeans, and rollerblades did not exactly cut an intimidating figure, even with the massive metal contraption on her right forearm. "Out of the way, little girl, it's past your bedtime," he said, reaching out to shove her aside.

Subaru shoved back with her left hand, sending the unaugmented man sprawling. She raised her right hand, and Revolver Knuckle started spinning, gathering power for a strike. "Go home," she instructed the soldiers, "I won't let you hurt anyone tonight."

+++Subaru has just punched a platoon of soldiers unconcious+++ Ginga informed the Doctor.

+++Once, just once, I'd like to do one of these without attempted treachery+++ the Doctor complained. +++Did she at least-+++

"There were a series of explosions near one of your hangers!" Nettle roared, interrupting Aloe's discussion about transferring equipment from hospitals unwilling to remain open. "What are you plotting!?"

+++That would be a no on keeping it quiet+++ the Doctor sighed. +++And it had been going so well, too+++

"All soldiers are under orders to stand down," Watkins replied, taken aback. "It may have been a glitch..."

"It was no glitch," Evergreen rumbled angrily. "They were blue and white, and they came from outside the hanger. You offer us peace, while-"

Purple light flared. Ginga had remained silent for the entire meeting, and everyone had nearly forgotten she was there. Now she stood, holding her Revolver Knuckle aloft, her full barrier jacket manifested. "Elements of the planetary guard violated their stand down order. I can personally confirm they were not acting on instructions of the governor. To preserve the ceasefire, I directed a subordinate to prevent them from accessing their heavy weaponry, and will turn the rogue unit over to their superiors for court martial. We will prevent any further attempts at violence as well. Continue." She sat down, setting her arms on the table where everyone could clearly see her gauntlet.

+++Sorry+++ Subaru sent +++I wanted to stay between them and the hovercraft, and I couldn't get inside without breaking down the door+++

+++It worked out all right+++ the Doctor replied+++You didn't hurt them too badly, I hope+++

+++Magical hits only+++ Subaru assured him +++They'll wake up in a few hours+++

"If you suspend elective surgeries, we can free up about a third of our existing rooms for life support equipment," Aloe said.

+++And we're back on topic+++ the Doctor sent. +++I like her+++

* * *

+++And that's that+++ the Doctor sent. +++Let's retrieve the TARDIS and get out+++

+++Shouldn't we stay?+++ Subaru asked. +++They might start fighting again as soon as we leave+++

+++We can't stay forever+++ the Doctor replied. +++They'll have to get by without us eventually. And I think it might be wise to leave before anyone besides Evergreen figures out all this is technically my fault+++

+++Doctor, did you almost blow up the sun?+++ Ginga asked him.

+++I have almost blown up lots of suns+++ the Doctor replied. +++But actually someone else almost blew up this one when they were trying to kill me+++

+++Um, will they come back?+++ Subaru asked. +++Because if someone tries to kill you by blowing up a sun, I don't think we'll be much help+++

+++They're dead+++ the Doctor assured her +++And we won't be able to travel to when they were alive even if we wanted to+++

The TARDIS had been released from its wooden prison, and sat waiting for them. The Doctor unlocked the TARDIS with his key and led them inside. "I would say we should go somewhere peaceful," he told them, "but I think peaceful places are allergic to me. So instead I'll let you pick a destination and hope we'll have better luck this time."

Ginga started to say something, then hesitated and looked down.

"Go on," the Doctor told her. "You've been looking anxious for a while now."

"I am," Ginga admitted. "I had assumed that in the future, most humans in the galaxy would be from Mid; instead they haven't even heard of us. I want to know what happened, but if we look at our own future..."

"Not a problem," the Doctor told her, "Time is pretty tough, most places. It can be rewritten. It's usually only dangerous to interfere in your own _personal_ history. And I'm curious too; I checked a lot of places for information, and turned up almost nothing."

"So you'll take us?" Subaru asked.

"Well, yes, but one condition," the Doctor warned them. "I'm not planning to fight your wars; if the TSAB loses one." He stared at them levelly "I'll strand you after they've lost if I have to. Do you understand me?"

Subaru and Ginga nodded seriously.

"Good," the Doctor said, turning to the controls. "We'll go to Mid in 0417, just a bit after the last trade agreement I could find." The TARDIS dematerialized.

"Best to stop off outside the system first," the Doctor continued, "I'm guessing you didn't just happen to have an entire strikeforce waiting for me when I landed, and there's no tel-"

A bell sounded.

"Something's wrong," the Doctor told them, "Hang on to something!"

The TARDIS shook, the bell tolling more insistently, soon joined by a shrieking alarm. Speakers in the control room started emitting a high-pitched, randomly shifting whistle. Cracks started spreading along the walls. "Doctor!" Subaru shouted, "What's going on?"

"There's a distortion," he called back, "Something in the Time Vortex! I'm trying to steer us out, but it's all around us!" The cracks in the walls spread into the air, furious white light spilling out.

"Dimensional quake!" Ginga yelled, recognizing the color. She and Subaru called on half-remembered training, magical circles flaring as they tried to stabilize reality around them. The cracks slowed but didn't stop, starting to eat at the magic restraining them along with the space within the TARDIS. Ginga tried not to think too hard about the fact that the training had only been for buying time until a properly qualified specialist could arrive to assist.

"Not in a regular sense!" the Doctor yelled, shifting the controls. "This isn't a random disaster, we've entered a minefield! Someone really doesn't want anyone time traveling here!" The TARDIS shook again "Or leaving!"

The light from the cracks abruptly stopped, and the ones in the air vanished with a thunderclap. The cracks in the walls were filled with impenetrable blackness. The bell and the alarm stopped; the whistle lasted a moment longer, then cut off. "We're out," the Doctor said, "but badly damaged and almost out of power."


	10. Chapter 10

"How bad is it?" Ginga asked.

"Better than it could be," the Doctor told her. "The TARDIS didn't recognize the minefield until we were already inside it. One more mine and we wouldn't have escaped at all. We're stable in the Vortex right now, and we can leave it. But we've got no choice but to set down somewhere the TARDIS can recharge and repair itself, and we'll be stuck there while it recharges."

"Back to Mid?" Subaru suggested. "We should be secure there, and the technical division might be able to help."

The Doctor shook his head. "The TARDIS isn't designed to refuel using magic, and as badly damaged as it is I don't want to try jury-rigging it. I've picked some things up over the years, but I'm not exactly a TARDIS engineer. We'll go somewhere it can recharge on its own. Just need to pick somewhere."

Ginga decided it was time for some answers. "Why pick somewhere?" she asked. "Why rely on the self-repair systems?"

"Well, I can't exactly go to an auto shop and buy a new engine, can I?" the Doctor deflected.

"Not on almost any planet," Ginga replied, "but there's at least one place that does make TARDIS components. Why not take it back to Gallifrey?"

The Doctor stared at her, then sighed. "I guess I can't keep avoiding the subject forever. Gallifrey is gone. Burned away. There was a war, and we lost. I'm the last Time Lord left in the whole universe. I can't even go back to before it happened. The entire war is sealed by a time lock. Like the minefield we hit, sort of. Not as dangerous, but completely impenetrable."

"I see." Ginga tried to think of something comforting to say, and failed. "Where can we recharge?"

"Complicated space-time events," the Doctor replied, grateful for the change of subject. "The TARDIS can absorb the energy they give off. Best choice is dimensional rifts; most other kinds can be dangerous, and hard to get to. Best choice is probably on Earth, in your time period. The Cardiff rift."

A battered and singed police box phased into being in an empty parking lot. A brown cat started and turned to look at it, then returned to sunning herself on a dumpster lid. The noon sun beamed down on it, reflecting through the smoke rising from the burns.

"And we're charging," the Doctor announced. "Eighty-four hours until we can dematerialize again."

+++Silver One to Long Arch, Silver One to Long Arch+++

+++Long Arch Actual, receiving+++

+++The TARDIS has sustained damage. We're currently stranded on Non-Administrated World 97, cotemporaneous with you+++ Ginga transmitted.

+++I see+++ Hayate responded +++Do you require assistance?+++

+++Not at this time+++ Ginga replied. +++The TARDIS is stable, and there is no indication of pursuit+++

+++I'm glad to hear that. There are ships in the region to provide support if necessary, and I'll contact a civilian mage I know+++ Hayate told her.

+++Thank you+++ Ginga replied, and cut the link.

"Care to see the local colour?" the Doctor asked them, already heading towards the door.

"I will stay in the TARDIS," Ginga told him, "I'd rather not get cut off from it again. Subaru can go."

"That doesn't happen very ofte-, no, actually, it does. Good idea. I'll go take Subaru around. In the meantime," the Doctor gestured at one of the screens around the console, "we picked up some sort of transmission in the minefield. See if you can sort it out on that."

Ginga nodded.

"Let's go out to eat somewhere," the Doctor said. "Do you like pizza?"

"I do," Subaru replied. "Let's go."

"Bring me some," Ginga called after them.

* * *

"Every time we go anywhere this happens," Owen complained, making a turn back in the direction of the Hub. "Spend a week cooped up indoors and nothing. Head out for lunch for an hour, suddenly there's aliens all over the place."

"Consider it a head start," Jack replied from her earpiece. "Tosh? Any luck identifying them yet?"

"No," Tosh told him, sitting back at the Hub. "I think I've seen the stationary one somewhere before, but the computer can't find a match. I don't recognize the other signal at all."

"Can you find anything on the CCTV?" Jack asked her.

"Trying," Tosh replied. "No cameras can see the first signal; still looking for the second."

"Keep looking," Jack said, "I'll go for the stationary signal; the rest of you, head after the other one."

"Second signal stopped moving," Tosh reported. "It's… at our pizza place."

* * *

"Seven pizzas?" the man behind the counter at Jubilee's asked dubiously.

"Two of them are to go," the Doctor replied.

"Are you really going to be able to eat all that?"

"I have great faith in her appetite," the Doctor told him.

* * *

Jack parked a block away from the signal and headed over on foot. He wasn't expecting too much trouble, probably just some people sucked through the rift, but it was best to be careful. He'd rather be able to see them before they saw him.

"I'm at the entrance," he told the team, "Can't see anything from the street. I'm heading in."

"Be careful," Gwen admonished him.

"I'm always careful," Jack replied cheerfully. He walked forwards, looking relaxed but keeping his hand near his concealed holster. No threats presented themselves along the driveway, and he cautiously peeked around the corner. Then he laughed and stepped out into the open.

"Took him long enough," he said, walking over to the police box. "He never calls, he never writes…"

He raised his hand to his earpiece, then turned at a small sound from the direction of a nearby dumpster. He saw an incoming blur, and fell to the ground hard as a young woman smashed into him.

"Hi, handsome," the woman said, her feline ears twitching. "I'm Lotte Lieze, who are you?"

* * *

Gwen led the team into the pizza place. "Okay," she said quietly, "They're in here somewhere. Ianto, go to the counter, order something. We'll take a table. They'll be trying to keep a low profile, maybe even invisible."

"Or," Owen suggested drily, "they could have blue hair and be halfway through their second pizza of five."

"Come on," Ianto replied, "What are the odds of that?"

Owen pointed at the table in the far corner.

"I guess we can just skip to the part where… um…" A puzzled look crossed Gwen's face, "What do we do when an alien is just sitting there?"

"We have Jack go over and talk to them," Ianto replied.

Gwen raised her hand to her earpiece. "Jack, we're pretty sure we've found them."

"Me too," he said, "It's-" his voice cut off abruptly.

"Jack? Jack, are you there? Jack!" Gwen called. She waited through a few seconds of dead air. "Okay, we grab her, then we go find the captain."

"And the man with her?" Owen asked.

"Grab him too."

* * *

"No calling for help," Lotte scolded, holding up the earpiece. "Answers first."

"I do always enjoy talking to a pretty lady," Jack said. "Captain Jack Harkness of Torchwood. Did the Doctor bring you?"

"Nope!" Lotte replied cheerfully, "Papa sent me over because we sensed interference from the TARDIS approaching, then little Hayate called to ask us to keep an eye on it while he was out. I thought today was going to be boring, but then you showed up."

"Today's looking up for me too," Jack replied, "But I really need to call my people now, before they shoot the Doctor."

"Is that likely?"

"Have you _met_ him?"

* * *

"You two, come with us," Gwen snapped.

"I'm still eating," Subaru protested.

"What do you need us for?" the Doctor asked, "Fourth for bridge? Pickup basketball team? Last-minute replacement for an eating contest?"

"We're not in the mood," Owen snarled. "Get up!"

"I think I'd rather sit," the Doctor replied, "Sitting's good. People should really be doing more sitting."

Gwen pulled out her pistol and pointed it at him. "Hands where I can see them. Get. Up."

"Subaru, no!" the Doctor yelled, "Do what they say, don't hurt them." Subaru pulled up short, and she and the Doctor stood up slowly, raising their hands.

"You should be more worried about yourselves. We're the ones with the guns," Owen pointed out.

"Yes, yes, good for you. Not really all that helpful right now, though," the Doctor said drily.

"Are you the police?" Subaru asked cautiously.

"We're from Torchwood," Gwen told her. "Anything alien is our responsibility."

"Ah, Torchwood! I remember you. Good to meet you, I'm the Doctor," the Doctor said cheerfully. "This is Subaru, she thinks she's my bodyguard, I'm hoping she'll grow out of it."

"Gwen! Gwen, I'm fine," Jack interrupted over the radio. "Stand down, it's the Doctor, I know him."

The team cautiously lowered her guns. "Jack?" Gwen asked, "What happened?"

"Got tackled by a lady keeping an eye out for people coming to steal his ship," Jack replied. "Case of mistaken identity. Tell the Doctor it's me, and I've got his old right hand on my desk. Tosh, go and check if it's doing anything."

+++Hi+++ Lotte sent to the Doctor and Subaru +++Hayate asked her uncle to help keep an eye out for you. I'm one of his familiars!+++

"Uh, Captain Jack Harkness says you know him," Gwen said, blinking.

"I do, yes. What's he doing in 21st century Cardiff? Besides flirting with the entire population, I mean."

"He does know Jack," Ianto commented.

"Okay, take them to the Hub," Jack instructed. "I'll be coming over to talk to him."

"Um," Subaru said, "I think you should tell the other customers there's nothing to worry about."

Gwen turned to look at the rest of the pizza parlor, suddenly remembering she'd just pulled a gun in a crowded restaurant. Everyone was sitting very still, trying to avoid attracting attention. The employee's hand had disappeared beneath the counter. "Yes, we should probably have done that before someone hit the silent alarm."

* * *

Lotte stood up and helped Jack to his feet. "Up you get, off to meet the Doctor."

Jack smiled winningly at her. "Care to come along?"

Lotte smiled back. "Afraid not, but," Bluish light flared nearby, "My sister will."

"Hi, I'm Aria Liese," the newly arrived catgirl told him.

"Good to meet both of you," Jack said, grinning.

Gwen stayed behind to persuade her former coworkers everything was completely fine and they didn't need to arrest anyone. Everyone else piled into the Torchwood SUV to head back to the Hub, along with Subaru's remaining pizza. On the way over, Subaru and the Doctor explained the situation to Ginga and the cats.

+++Are you sure it's safe?+++ Ginga asked worriedly +++If they're responsible for studying alien technology, won't they want the TARDIS?+++

+++I'm hoping Captain Jack talked some sense into them when it comes to meddling with things they don't understand+++ the Doctor replied +++And that they've learned something since Canary Wharf+++

+++The Extradimensional Robot Ghost Incident?+++ Aria asked, sounding concerned.

+++That… is a remarkably straightforward name you have there. Yes+++

+++That is not reassuring+++ Ginga told him. +++Be careful+++

Owen parked the SUV near a non-descript building labeled as a tourist information office. "We're here," he said, "Torchwood Three."

"Where are Torchwood One and Two?" Subaru asked, unbuckling herself.

"One was in London," Ianto said, "until it got destroyed. Four is missing. Two is even worse; it's in Glasgow."

"I'm surprised you rebuilt so quickly," the Doctor said.

Owen laughed as he led them into the basement. "Hardly rebuilt; it's pretty much just the five of us." He tapped a button and the wall swung open. Behind it lay a massive stone room with consoles and equipment scattered throughout it. "We do have this, though. Hey Tosh, visitors here!"

"Hello," Tosh called, "Welcome to the Hub." She turned away from the console she'd been working at, picked up a glass canister, and climbed up the stairs to meet them at the entrance. "You're the Doctor that Jack is always talking about?"

"Yes, that would be me," the Doctor replied. "How did he get back to the 21st century?"

"Back from where?" Tosh asked, confused.

"Well, obviously it's after he met me for him," the Doctor said, "so he'd have needed to come back about two hundred thousand years, and skip his home timezone, and even for an immortal-" He broke off as he realized the entire Torchwood team was staring at him. "I, um, assumed he had mentioned that at some point."

"He didn't mention, well, any of that," Tosh said. "Also, apparently this is your hand?" she continued, holding out the cylinder. The hand inside twitched slightly.

Subaru looked at the cylinder, at the doctor, and back at the cylinder. "But you have both your hands." Then a thought struck her. "Do we need to go back and chop off-"

"No, no," the Doctor said hurridly, "Already lost it. Grew a new one. No chopping required; I am opposed to chopping." He reached out and accepted the canister from Tosh. "So, is there something you need my help with, or is this just a social call?"

"Jack wanted to meet you," Ianto said. "You've helped him with alien technology before?" The Doctor frowned slightly at his hopeful tone, but before he could respond, the door to the building opened.

"Hey Doc," Jack called. "The new face looks good on you. Listen, I wanted to ask you something…"

* * *

"So you're from the Time-Space Administration Bureau?" Ianto asked, having volunteered to talk to the newcomers while everyone else had a great many questions for Jack and the Doctor. He sat with Aria and Subaru by one of the doors out of the main room. Ginga was present by holoscreen projected from Mach Calibur, though her attention was focused on the TARDIS console the Doctor had directed her to.

"Yes we are," Subaru said. "My regular assignment is with the rescue force, but the Main Office had been worried the Doctor might lose the TARDIS and wanted someone to escort him, and since my sister and I had been rescued by him when we were young, we volunteered."

"He accepted an escort? The way Jack talks about him, and from what I heard at Torchwood One, I'd think he'd tell you to shove off." Ianto said.

"That's why Hayate picked them," Aria said. "Since he'd already met them, they would feel less like an intrusion. She'd have sent her Knights if he'd take them."

"He does tend to pick up people, from what I hear," Ianto commented. "And apparently keeps wiping our records on him. Speaking of records, why didn't we know about you before now?"

"If you look in your old records, you probably did," Ginga said. "Or rather, our predecessors. But we haven't been active on Earth on a large scale in the past few centuries, and most of our technology is hard for you to detect. And we raise barriers to restrict collateral damage and local knowledge when we act outside our borders."

"Which we don't do much," Subaru said apologetically. "I wish we could help you more, but we're usually not allowed to."

"Not too different from us, really," Ianto replied. "We're responsible for dealing with aliens, so we usually don't do anything about regular crimes we run into. Gwen takes it pretty hard sometimes."

"Well," Subaru said brightly, "while we're with the Doctor we're allowed to help him and his friends. I can fight, and I know some magical first aid, so if you need anything…"

"Me too," Aria said. "I'm retired, and English, so I can come by Wales for a bit now and then."

"Might be some things," Ianto said, aiming for casual and missing. "Like closing the Rift, for one thing. Or even just letting us track travel through it."

"No," Aria said, leaning back. "We can seal little rifts, but not one that big."

Ianto shrugged. "Can't hurt to ask." He stood up quickly. "Aside from that, there's a bunch of stuff in the archives we don't really understand. Maybe you'll have better luck. Care to take a tour of the rest of the Hub?"

"I've got some transmissions to decode," Ginga said, "but Subaru can go."

"Sure," Subaru said. "Let's ask the others-"

"No, no," Ianto interrupted, "I can handle it, and they're busy talking to the Doctor."

"But-" Subaru began.

"Sure, let's go," Aria said, leaping to her feet.

* * *

"The truth is," Ianto said nervously as he led them downwards, "there's something I haven't shown the others yet."

"Why not?" Subaru asked curiously.

"It, ah, isn't something Jack would approve of keeping," Ianto admitted. "I'll explain when we get there. Just a few more flights. Just, when we get there, don't do anything drastic."

+++Get ready to activate your barrier jacket+++ Aria said with the wisdom of long experience.

A few flights further down, as promised, Ianto led them to a small door in the back of another room, unlocked it, and waved them through. Aria and Subaru stepped through, instantly spotting what he'd brought them to see.

In the center of the room, a dark-skinned woman was strapped into a heavy metal frame, tubing running into her in several different locations. For a moment, Subaru thought she was wearing half of a suit of metal armor, but then realized the metal was fused into the flesh at the edges. She unconsciously clenched her fist. Next to her, Aria suddenly hissed.

"I can explain," Ianto said urgently

"Talk fast," Aria snarled. "I recognize that design."


	11. Chapter 11

"Her name is Lisa. She worked at Torchwood London," Ianto said hurriedly, "during the battle at Canary Wharf. The Cybermen captured her, started converting her. They were in a hurry, so they augmented human bodies rather than just replacing them outright. Before they finished, all the invaders got sucked back to wherever they came from. Not all the implants got installed, and the ones that are aren't working properly. I found her, kept her condition stable in the conversion unit, and-"

"They're altered humans?" Aria interrupted. "I thought they were androids." Her tone had shifted from furious to wary, her ears lying flat as she eyed Lisa.

"The normal ones are close," Ianto told her. "Human brains extracted and placed in a robotic shell. But they can do partial replacements. I don't know how well they last; maybe they're supposed to be temporary."

"Ianto?" Lisa called weakly from the metal framework. "Did you bring someone?"

"Yes," he said, walking forwards. Aria shifted aside to let him pass, not taking her eyes off Lisa. Subaru followed Ianto, her earlier anger vanishing into concern. "They're with the Doctor. Remember him?"

Lisa's eyes unfocused. "The Doctor. Yes. He tried to protect the President."

"The President?" Ianto asked her, confused.

"When-"Lisa blinked. "I am sorry. I do not know why I said that."

"It must be the painkillers," Ianto told her. "Just rest, we'll have you out soon." Lisa nodded and closed her eyes.

Subaru examined Lisa closely, focusing on the area where the metal met flesh. "Was she genetically modified?" Subaru asked. "I'm not seeing any sign of rejection syndrome."

"What? No, she's normal," Ianto replied. "What syndrome?"

"Normally, people's immune systems try to attack anything implanted in them," Subaru explained, continuing the examination as she talked. "If it's an organ transplant, it'll be destroyed quickly. Cybernetics are usually too sturdy to be destroyed like that, but the surrounding tissue is often damaged in the process. But she looks fine around the connection points."

"The Cybermen seem to be able to convert anyone," Ianto replied. "I guess they've fixed that. Maybe there's an immunosuppressant in the conversion unit?"

"Maybe," Aria said, ears still flat. "How many can it make?"

Meanwhile, Subaru opened a telepathic connection. +++Doctor, Ianto is asking for our help with a woman stuck in something he says is a Cyberman conversion unit. Do you know-+++

* * *

"He has a _what!?_ " the Doctor yelled, forgetting to stick to telepathy.

"Um, Doctor?" Jack asked, exchanging a glance with Owen.

"Subaru says there's someone in a Cyber-conversion unit downstairs," the Doctor explained tersely, leaping to his feet. +++Don't touch it!+++"Don't you people ever _learn?_ "

"Apparently not," Jack said grimly. "Tosh, where are they?"

Tosh ran over to one of the consoles and activated a scan. "Four heat signatures in the bottom storeroom."

"Stay here," Jack ordered her, "Get ready to activate the lockdown on my signal or if we lose contact. Owen, with me."

* * *

Jack burst into the storeroom, the Doctor on his heels. He pointed his gun towards the conversion unit, and Subaru stepped into the line of fire. "Out of the way." Jack ordered.

"No." Subaru said firmly. "I won't let you hurt her. She needs help."

"She's beyond help," Jack told her. "She's had her humanity stripped out and replaced with metal. Get out of the way."

Light flared around Subaru. Ianto moved towards Jack and Owen, only for Aria to leap forward to block him, simultaneously raising a hand towards Subaru. Lisa started in her restraints, eyes flying open. Owen leveled his pistol at Subaru as the light subsided to reveal her barrier jacket, right hand raised and open. "She's not a monster," Subaru snarled, her eyes shifting to yellow. A shield formed in front of her. "Put your guns down!"

"Everyone calm down!" the Doctor barked. "Stop pointing weapons at each other!" Jack hesitated momentarily, then lowered his gun, Owen reluctantly following his lead. Subaru lowered her shield and dropped her gauntlet to her side, but didn't disperse her barrier jacket. Aria stepped back and to the side, keeping her focus on Subaru.

"Thank you," the Doctor said calmly. "Let me introduce you to Subaru Nakajima. She's a Combat Cyborg serving with the Time Space Administration Bureau." Jack winced as the Doctor turned to Subaru. "Unlike you," he explained, "the Cybermen aren't adapted to interface with the cybernetics. They're in constant agony, only kept in check by an emotional suppressor. They're left with a single-minded focus on upgrading everyone else to be like them; they think it's a mission of mercy. Now you," he said, turning towards Ianto, "already knew that. So why did you hide a Cyberman in your basement?"

"Her name is Lisa," Ianto replied defiantly. "She's not fully converted. She still has her own mind."

"Yes," Lisa said. "I'm still me, even like this. Ianto was trying to find someone who could help me survive outside the conversion unit."

"I see," the Doctor replied, eyes going to the U-shaped metal segment emerging from the headpiece. "You won't mind if I scan you, then?"

"Of course not," Ianto said. "That's what I'd been hoping for all along!"

"Well," Jack said doubtfully, "I'm not sure about this, but if anyone can undo a cyber-conversion it's you. Go ahead."

"That's too dangerous," Aria said. "What if the unit grabs you when you get too close?"

"Oh, that won't be a problem," the Doctor assured her. "Cybermen are made from humans; they aren't able to convert other species. It won't recognize you or me as a subject for conversion."

Aria nodded. "All right," she said, "But I'm still going to put a binding on her." She turned and raised her hand, a circle appearing around her feet. Chains of blue light wrapped around Lisa, pinning her against the framework of the conversion unit. The Doctor nodded his thanks at her and walked forwards. Subaru stepped out of his way, staying between Lisa and Jack.

The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and ran it over Lisa's body with a whirr. "It looks like a lot of implants are installed but not properly integrated," he commented. "It shouldn't take too much work to get her up and walking. Now, let's see what we have up here," he continued, moving it over the headpiece. "I was afraid of that," he sighed. "The suppressor is installed and partially active. It's affecting her thoughts; she's not on enough painkillers to be this calm."

"But she's still acting the same as ever," Ianto protested.

"Has she?" the Doctor asked him, turning and switching off his screwdriver. "Was her hobby spending months locked into an iron coffin alone in a basement? Because I don't know many humans who enjoy that."

"Yes," Lisa said. "They made me better. I've been upgraded. I could not have lasted without that." Ianto paled, staring at her with horror.

"I thought so," the Doctor said grimly. "You're still independent, but you're thinking the way they do. They've made you think emotions are a weakness to be purged. You're probably thinking that all the other humans need to be upgraded too; that they'll understand once you do that."

"Can we undo it?" Subaru asked anxiously. "Even if she's being controlled, I don't want to give up on her."

The Doctor sighed. "I don't know," he told her. "The process isn't finished; her brain isn't fully integrated. But if we just pull the implants out it'll kill her, and without the suppression she'll be in constant agony. We'd need an advanced hospital that doesn't mind a Cyberman patient."

"I do not need the upgrade undone," Lisa said in a monotone, "I want you to complete the upgrade. You can all be made better."

"Objection noted," the Doctor said, raising his screwdriver, "Take a nap now." Lisa's eyes unfocused.

"What about nanogenes?" Jack suggested. "That Chula hospital ship could raise the dead; if we take her back to right after you reprogrammed it, it could fix her."

"Good thinking," the Doctor said sarcastically. "Bring a Cyberman into contact with a very sophisticated, not very smart system for performing medical procedures on an entire world."

"Okay, no nanogenes. Got it," Jack said.

"There's hospitals on Mid," Subaru said. "Magical healing might be able to help. It would take years, but-"

"One question," Aria interrupted. "Can she convert people without a conversion unit or build a new one?"

"They don't have that technology yet," the Doctor replied. "She'd need electronics to use as raw material, not magic crystals."

Aria gave him a decidedly unconvinced look. "When do they get that technology?" she asked.

"Oh, not soon," the Doctor assured her. "About 0580 by your calendar. There's no danger she'd suddenly develop it." He paused. "Unless you put in some of Subaru's spare parts," he corrected himself. "Don't let her touch anything metal that can grow back when damaged."

"I'll call Hayate," Aria said. "There's secure stations with medical facilities."

The Doctor nodded. "Ginga's been telling me about the things you put in your secure stations. They'll contain her for sure."

"Good to hear," Jack said. "We'll make preparations to move her. Ianto, we're going to have a talk."

* * *

"I brought your pizza," Subaru said as she walked into the TARDIS. The exterior burns had healed, and the cracks in the inner walls had shut.

"Thank you," Ginga said, stepping away from the console and taking the boxes from Subaru. "How was the tour?"

"Exciting," the Doctor told her. "Have you found anything interesting?"

"Not much," Ginga replied between bites. "It looks like we got segments of transmissions through the rifts when the mines hit. Only a few are intact, and the TARDIS is having trouble with the telepathic transmissions. Blitz Calibur is working on them. They're evacuation warnings and military orders, some telepathic, some mass-based. Some civilian news broadcasts; fewer and fewer as time goes on." Ginga's expression turned grim. "There's a list of secondary evacuation sites after losing control of the spaceport in Cranagan from 0513."

"Nearly a hundred years after losing contact," the Doctor mused. "They were at war all that time, and losing, and they couldn't call for help. The mass-based transmissions must be from the attackers; they deployed the minefield to prevent the TSAB from moving through dimensional space. That would have made them easy pickings."

"That's not the case," Ginga replied. "There's a TSAB transmission confirming activation of the temporal minefield in 0451; we have a large window of traffic from then. And there are subsequent messages from TSAB ships in transit; it doesn't cut off movement in dimensional space."

"But the minefield would only… Who were they fighting?"

"Several different groups, I believe," Ginga said. "There appear to be several different kinds of mass-based transmissions. I'm looking for more information. One of the TSAB transmissions is an order for an Admiral Els to lead her fleet to counter an attack by the Could-Have-Been King."

"Could you play one of the mass-based transmissions for me? From the largest category?" the Doctor asked, hoping his guess was wrong but knowing in his hearts it wasn't. Ginga nodded and stepped back over to the console.

"Alert! Alert!" a furious metallic voice shrieked. "We are attacked! Defend the rift! Exterminate! Exterminate!"

The Doctor sagged. "Of course it's them," he muttered. "Of course they're back."

"Who's back?" Subaru asked him. "Doctor, who is it? What do you know about them?"

"I said I wouldn't help you fight your wars," the Doctor said distantly. "But it looks like your people are fighting mine. I thought I'd destroyed the Daleks forever, but they've never been good at dying." He sighed. "Once the TARDIS is finished repairing itself, I'll drop you two off on Midchilda, and then I have a war to end."

"No," Subaru told him. "This is our world's future. We're not staying behind."

The Doctor stared at her. She gazed back firmly, crossing her arms. Finally the Doctor looked away and sighed. "I suppose that's your right. And your sister isn't going to fall for the old 'go pick up your stuff, I'll be right here in the TARDIS' trick, so I don't really have a choice in the matter."

"Have you done that before?" Subaru asked him.

"No, just thinking out loud."

* * *

"Can we do anything to help prepare the TSAB?" Hayate asked from her holographic video screen.

"Unfortunately no," the Doctor said. "The Time Vortex is distorted in the area. I'm not sure if that was intentional or a side-effect of the minefield. The only way in is a direct temporal jump to the origin point of the minefield."

In that case," Knight Carim said from her own screen, "we should dispatch a larger force in the TARDIS. There's no risk that would result in the future TSAB being weaker when the war begins."

"I doubt that would be much help," the Doctor replied. "The TARDIS can carry an army, but not an armada. You won't be able to send enough firepower to tilt the balance of the war. Not unless you have some magical superweapon that can wipe away a Dalek fleet."

"We are not putting Lost Logia inside the TARDIS," Hayate said mildly yet firmly. "You're right; we can't send enough firepower to match a single Arc-en-Ciel, and they'll have all the ground troops you'll need. If you need any particular expertise, we can send that."

"Well," the Doctor told her, "I could use someone sneaky. Someone who can get me into Dalek bases and find out what they're up to. Do you know anyone like that?" Hayate and Carim glanced at each other, then at Subaru and Ginga. "What?" the Doctor asked them.

* * *

"I'm really very sorry!" Subaru repeated. She bowed towards the four new arrivals, each wearing thick rubber-like formfitting suits with roman numerals on the collars. The leftmost new arrival, **VIII** , wore a set of jeans and an open short jacket over the suit.

"No. I should be apologizing to you," **V** replied, eyepatch to eye with Subaru's bowed head. Then she turned to the Doctor. "I'm Cinque. This-"she gestured at the cyan-haired woman labeled **VI** -"is my little sister Sein. I'm here to ensure she behaves. These two"-She pointed at the brown-haired duo of **VIII** and **XII** -"are Otto and Deed." Sein waved and smiled at him, while Otto and Deed stood expressionlessly.

"Don't you have more siblings?" the Doctor asked her. "Ginga mentioned a Nove."

"She is not an infiltration specialist," Cinque replied. "Otto, Sein, and I are."

"What about Deed, then?" the Doctor asked. "Is she also an infiltration specialist?"

"No," Deed told him. "My Inherent Skill is swordfighting. I am here because Otto is here." The Doctor waited for her to expand on that, but she appeared to think that was sufficient explanation.

"The twins are always like that," Sein explained, grinning. "Inseperable and so very boring."

"Otto and Deed are very competent and disciplined," Cinque said. "Sein, on the other hand, can phase inside solid matter." Sein put on a look of hurt innocence.

"Ah, good," the Doctor said drily, "I missed having passengers who ignored me when I told them not to wander off. It was very disconcerting. Are you ready to leave? We won't be able to come back anytime soon, so if there's anything you need to do first…"

"There is not," Otto informed him. The Doctor nodded and turned to the controls. The TARDIS activated and began to shake. The Doctor continued fiddling with the controls, the sound of the dematerialization building, sounding strained.

"There's a spatial distortion too; almost a bubble universe," the Doctor said. "Subaru, go hold that lever down." As Subaru scrambled to obey, the Doctor whirled to another side of the control table and began tapping at buttons. "We're going to punch through. I'm discarding secondary rooms to free up power; you all reinforce the space inside the TARDIS. This is a weak point, but we're still going to clip a mine or two." A bell tolled once. "Here it comes!" The air distorted, but with circles burning around Subaru and Ginga, it didn't crack. A few seconds later, the TARDIS quieted.

"We're through," the Doctor said. He stepped around the control table over to a display. "Let's see what's waiting for us."

"We can do that?" Subaru asked him, startled. Ginga just sighed.

"I usually like surprises," the Doctor told them. "But I've had enough Dalek surprises for eleven lifetimes." The screen snapped to life, revealing a utilitarian metal room containing a red-haired woman with blue and green eyes in a white and blue shirt and dress holding a jeweled naginata. Otto and Deed looked contemplative. "Either someone from the TSAB is waiting for us or there's been an accident in a theater dressing room."

As soon as Deed led them through the door, the woman saluted. "Welcome. I am captain Takamachi of special assault division eight." Sein looked dismayed while Subaru and Ginga began vibrating slightly. The woman continued obliviously, "Which of you is the Doctor?"

"That would be me," the Doctor said, stepping forwards. "These are-"

"Subaru!" a girlish voice interrupted. A short orange-haired girl dashed from a doorway, past a pair of women in bronze dresses and black facemasks, and lept up to wrap Subaru in a hug. Far away in time and space a taller orange-haired girl felt an urge to punch someone but didn't know who or why.

"Eh?" Subaru responded. "Um, uh, who are you?"

"Don't you recognize me?" the girl asked. 'It's me, Ixpellia!"

"Eh?" Subaru repeated. "EEEEHHHH?"


	12. Chapter 12

"You're Ixpellia?" the Doctor asked. "Flame King of Hades, immortal ruler of Galea, served by an endless army of the undead?"

Ixpellia let go of Subaru and dropped to the ground. "That's me," she confirmed, curtsying gracefully.

The Doctor looked bemused. "Somehow I thought you'd be taller."

Ixpellia put her hands on her hips. "Subaru, didn't you tell him about me?" Her pair of Mariage escorts caught up to her, staring at Subaru, their glowing eyeslits somehow seeming accusing.

"Um, I'm sorry," Subaru said numbly, confusion written over her face. "When did I meet you before?"

"0078 at the Marine Gardens," Ixpellia said angrily. "I can't believe you forgot!" Subaru flushed and stammered.

"That hasn't happened yet," the Doctor said quickly. "Don't tell us anything else about it; knowing your personal future can be dangerous." He turned to Captain Takamachi. "You were waiting for me specifically?"

"Yes," she replied. "You're recorded as defeating the Daleks again and again. We left you a way in, hoping you would come to help us. We don't have many other hopes left. Protecting Heart, status?"

Her naginata spoke. "Time finished, my master." Sein flinched.

Captain Takamachi nodded. "All units, the Doctor has arrived and the vulnerability has closed. Withdraw as planned." She turned to the Mariages. "Deploy the Skaro units to cover our retreat."

"You didn't," the Doctor said in a tone of pure horror.

"Mariage is online!" a Dalek voice shrieked in the distance. "Protect Her Majesty! Protect the Doctor! Protect!"

"I did," Ixpellia confirmed sadly.

"Zombie Daleks," the Doctor said. He turned to the TARDIS. "I know I set the right destination this time. It was 'the future TSAB', _not_ 'all of my nightmares'!"

"It could be worse," Sein suggested brightly. "The Daleks could be mages."

"Um," Ixpellia said.

"Don't tell me the Daleks are all mages," the Doctor said, still glaring at the TARDIS.

"Two types of Skaro Degredation are mages," one of the Mariages in the room replied. "Most other variants have Linker Cores sufficient for conversion."

"Do you have any good news?" the Doctor asked. "Any at all?"

Captain Takamachi placed her naginata base against the ground, and a pink magical circle expanded from it to envelope the room. "We're about to teleport onto a ship that can easily outmaneuver the Daleks in dimensional space," she offered. The circle flared, and they were suddenly in a different, equally featureless, metal room, TARDIS included.

"Thank you," the Doctor said. They headed towards the only door out. "Also, do you know why you're traumatizing my companions?"

Captain Takamachi looked at them tiredly. "You've met some of my ancestors, haven't you?" They all nodded in unison. She sighed. "I guess it was too much to hope that you never heard of the White Devil."

"They met her personally," Ixpellia told her. "Subaru and Ginga always talked about when they had joint training exercises with the Aerial Mages, and Miss Nanoha set the schedule. And she was part of arresting the others. Really, though, she wasn't as bad as the stories say."

"Do people blow out a candle after they tell these stories?" Cinque asked drily.

"It's your fault!" Captain Takamachi abruptly yelled. " _You're_ why everyone freezes up whenever they're selected as my sparring partner! Why I'm always alone during target practice! Did you start the ones about how her close person could outrun a teleporter _too!?_ "

"She actually did that once," Ixpellia said.

"Not. Helping." Captain Takamachi sighed. "Please just call me Des and try to forget about my ancestor."

"What's Des short for?" the Doctor asked her.

"It's traditional to give first names similar to one of the family founders because we don't inherit her family name, and I don't want to talk about it," Des muttered, blushing. Sein frowned thoughtfully, then started giggling. "If we're done digging into my deeply embarrassing family background, we have a war to fight."

"Quite," the Doctor said gravely. +++Who's her name based off?+++ he asked Sein.

+++Fate Testrossa-Harlaown+++ Sein explained, still giggling.

The Doctor carefully suppressed his own laugher and focused on the topic at hand. "How did the Daleks and the others arrive? I've encountered survivors of the war before, but I know the Could've Been King was trapped in the timelock, and his armies burned with all the rest."

"There were time travel magic experiments on an unpopulated world in late 0412," Des explained. "Four Daleks, primary strain with an enhanced version of the standard travel machine, seized control of the research facility with the help of a criminal organization. By the time a TSAB response force arrived, the Daleks had exterminated their accomplices, opened a temporal rift, and called in a battlefleet. They've been bringing more reinforcements through ever since, at least when they've got control of the far side of the rift."

"The Cult Of Skaro," the Doctor said, nodding. "They must have escaped Canary Wharf somehow. Supposedly there's no way to break through a timelock, but-"the light dimmed and the floor vibrated gently under their feet. "What was that?" the Doctor demanded. "That felt like a mass driver volley. Four cannons, I think."

"It was," Des replied casually, "The _Finieno_ has heavy hybrid railguns as its primary ship-to-ship armament."

"Mass weapons were banned by order of the High Council," Otto noted.

Des shrugged. "That must have been changed before I was born. All our capital ship main batteries use mass-based projectiles."

"That one was waived with little debate," Ixpellia added. She looked down, ashamed. "Reactivating my Mariage production abilities, and the Combat Cyborg and Artificial Mage programs, were debated more before we did them. I'm sorry."

"I always wanted a younger sister," Deed said in the same calm voice she said everything else with. Subaru and Ginga forced smiles. Sein and Cinque smiled more naturally.

The Doctor sighed. "I killed two point four seven billion children when I burned Gallifrey to end the war. I suppose I have no right to criticize what anyone else does to destroy the Daleks."

Des led them through a door in silence. They emerged onto the upper tier of a two-tier bridge, a dozen people in standard brown uniforms at consoles on the lower tier, a black-haired woman sitting in a command chair with her arms restrained against the arms of the chair on the upper tier. Another woman, blonde, holding a staff and wearing a black cloak, standing next to the chair turned to greet them. Des saluted. "Colonel Mazda, I've brought the Doctor." The lights dimmed again as the ship fired another volley.

The colonel returned the salute, then turned to speak to Otto. "We're grateful for your assistance, Doctor. Our ground force is all aboard now. We'll be withdrawing into dimensional space shortly." She gestured towards the front of the bridge, which appeared to open into a black void lit only by running lights and weapons fire of warships, with several inset holograms showing groups of warships and another depicting a simple three-dimensional map of the planetary orbit. "Meanwhile, your tactical assistance would be appreciated."

"I am not the Doctor," Otto said. "He is the Doctor."

"Uh…" Colonel Mazda said awkwardly.

"I don't mind being confused with someone so fetching," the Doctor told her cheerfully. He focused on the screens. Blue icons massed over a segment of the planet, with a white icon in the very center. Red icons were streaming up from the planet at several points, a tight column pressing towards the blue mass. In the visual displays, wrecked ships from both fleets burned as they fell into the atmosphere. Volleys of missiles poured from the Dalek warships, then flashed into nonexistence as beams of light blazed from TSAB ships to intercept them. More beams struck at the Dalek ships themselves, focusing on smaller saucers. The beams fuzzed and shrank as they approached their targets, but still cut deeply into their hulls. Under fire from several TSAB ships apiece, the head of the column came apart.

"The Daleks are concentrating all fire on us," the woman in the command chair noted. The main view twisted as the ship danced through the remains of a missile barrage. "Every ship that gets into effective range is ignoring the rest of the fleet, leaving themselves vulnerable." A quartet of magical circles formed on the main screen. The _Finieno_ fired again, four glowing metal bolts hurling through the circles and then slamming into a massive Dalek saucer. The Dalek ship split in two, running lights going dark.

"They know I'm aboard, and they might know Ixpellia is too." the Doctor said. "That makes you a higher-priority target than the entire rest of the fleet. They'll get through eventually, if we don't jump away first."

Colonel Mazda nodded. "Prepare for jump," she instructed. "As soon as our escort squadron confirms local dimensional space is secure, we're withdrawing. Captain Sanzenko, inform the admiral." The woman in the command chair nodded in acknowledgement.

"We can stay here a while longer," the Doctor pointed out. "Serve as bait, let the fleet pick them apart while they chase us. It'd hardly be the first time I did that."

"There's nothing left here of strategic value except you and Ix," Colonel Mazda replied. "The Jewel Seeds generating the minefield are in the Time Vortex, and all non-Mariage ground forces teleported out. Once we're clear the fleet will destroy major Dalek concentrations, then withdraw."

"The civilian population has long since been evacuated," Ixpellia added, guessing the real reason for the Doctor's suggestion.

"Where are the stars?" Subaru asked suddenly. "I only see a couple." She pointed at the main display.

"Washed out by the light from the fighting," the Doctor said idly, attention still on the tactical map.

"That's not it," Subaru persisted. "It's not bright enough for that. We should see more stars than in most cities."

"The Distortion Wall," Des explained. "It's derived from Lost Logia research. It transferred the entire TSAB into a pocket universe. It was supposed to keep enemies out, but we activated it to keep the Daleks in instead. Most of the stars inside are too far away to see, but nearby dimensionally."

"We are clear for jump," Sanzenko said. The view shifted, replaced by the multicolored glow of dimensional space, broken by a handful of TSAB escort ships. The tactical map remained in place, the TSAB ships pulling out of orbit, spreading their formations. Golden circles appeared around several of the icons. The Dalek ships scattered frantically, dispersing in every direction. "Setting course for headquarters."

"The Daleks can't follow us here?" Cinque asked.

"They can," Sanzenko said, "But most mass-based weapons are ineffective. They also have inferior dimensional drives, and can't operate them in heavy AMF. They do have some magic-focused warships, but very few. We think only Magi-type Degredations can operate them."

"What are 'Degredations'?" Ginga asked.

"The Skaro Degredations are Daleks from other timelines," the Doctor explained. "Forms they might have taken if history had gone differently. Different genetics, different shells, same hate. The regular Daleks use them as expendable shocktroops. They must have generated a timeline where they obtained magical abilities as a countermeasure to yours."

"That sounds much more difficult than simply modifying their own genetic structure," Otto pointed out.

"That would make them impure," the Doctor replied, "They hate that more than anything else."

Sections of the map suddenly flared white as the golden circles around TSAB icons vanished. Dalek ships caught in the glow disappeared. The surviving ones began reforming their formations. "Arc-en-Ciel firing confirmed. The fleet is withdrawing," Sanzenko reported. TSAB ships began disappearing from the map, jumping into dimensional space.

"All clear-"one of the crewmen on the lower tier began, only to be interrupted by a shrieking alarm. Captain Sanzenko grimaced and a new screen popped into existence. It showed a squadron of TSAB-style ships, but painted in black and red, emitting flickering orange light from their hulls.

"Neverwere," the Doctor said. "Looks like the Could've Been King has picked up some mages too."

Des nodded. "That's the _Hellfire Star_ in the center of the formation. It's the personal flagship of one of his countesses."

"We have them outnumbered," Sanzenko said confidently. The new screen zoomed outwards to show the full extent of the Neverwere formation, and the tactical map switched from the regrouping Daleks to dimensional space. The TSAB fleet reconfigured, moving from being centered on the _Finieno_ to interposing the bulk of the fleet between it and the Neverwere. "She won't commit to an engagement under these circumstances."

"Thank the Saint King for that," Des muttered.

"Aw, but you're missing out on more family stories about her and her mamas," Mazda said with a grin.

"Those ones technically never happened!"

* * *

As predicted, the _Hellfire Star_ remained at a distance, stalking the TSAB fleet on the edge of sensor range. The admiral steadfastly refused to pursue, suspecting it was a ploy to either lure the fleet into a trap or separate the _Finieno_ from its escorts. As the fleet neared its destination, the _Hellfire Star_ turned and withdrew.

The restraints on Sanzenko's arms snapped open, and she stretched, revealing metallic cables retracting into her forearms. "Finally," she grumbled. "I hate these sustained engagements. We really ought to get someone else with Control Fusion."

"I'll ask High Command again," Colonel Mazda said in the tone of someone who knows the answer will be no. "Get some rest while you can; we're likely to be deploying again soon."

Subaru smiled sympathetically. "Been up several days straight?" she asked.

Sanzenko grunted. "You set a bad precedent. But I guess we do have you to thank for our ration allotments."

* * *

The fleet began dispersing as it arrived at headquarters, the _Finieno_ and its squadron proceeding towards a central docking pylon. Colonel Mazda, Des, and a massive grey wolf introduced as Knight-Captain Warui, accompanied the TARDIS residents through the airlock. Ixpellia and her Mariage bodyguards trailed along behind.

They were greeted by a large contingent of TSAB soldiers in robes and metallic breastplates holding what looked distinctly like submachine guns. A pair of armored turrets poked out between them. None of the guns were pointed directly towards the new arrivals, but Subaru still swiftly interposed herself between them and the Doctor. "Routine check," the wolf assured them, sounding decidedly more like a kindly mother than a giant predator. "Sorry, we should have warned you. I forgot you haven't done this before."

A man stepped out through the ranks, carrying a staff. Blue light pulsed out, and the staff said "All green." The soldiers holstered their weapons and saluted.

"Stop… stop that. No saluting. I hate being saluted. Does the TSAB have a law requiring them to greet visitors with an armed platoon?" the Doctor asked. "It seems to be a remarkably consistent theme."

"We've had trouble with Daleks turning ground troops into infiltrators," Des said. "They're dangerous when cornered."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Dangerous, yes, but to mages? They used that tactic during the Time War, but their weapons aren't all that powerful."

"You may have a skewed impression of how powerful regular mages are," the guard commander said wryly. He gestured at his soldiers. "Most of us can't generate barriers strong enough to resist a Dalek gunstick; we have to supplement them with physical armor. Anyways, we're to take the Doctor to meet with High Command. His companions may accompany him or make use of the training grounds."

"And if I don't want to go meet High Command?" the Doctor asked.

The soldiers shuffled awkwardly, unsure how to respond to that. Warui spoke up on their behalf. "We're to allow you to do what you think best; special assault division eight is at your disposal. However, High Command wants to discuss their overall military strategy with you. And it will give time for Taka-" she noticed Ginga's expression "-me to run your associates through training simulations."

The Doctor stared at her, his brow furrowing. "You really are desperate." He turned to his companions. "I'll go see them. Ginga, Otto, come with me. Cinque, Deed, keep those two out of trouble and go with the nice wolf."

Cinque nodded seriously, and her hand shot out to grab Sein's arm tightly. "Hey!" Sein protested. "I'm not going to run off on you!"

"I'm more worried about you swimming off," Cinque replied, pulling her to follow Warui.


	13. Chapter 13

"We'll begin with the standard Dalek," Warui said. She'd shifted from her wolf form to a towering, muscular woman in a black tank top and shorts, with silver hair and canine ears, and led the four cyborg girls into a totally empty, rectangular room that could have fit several apartment buildings. She held up her hand and an object seemed to rise out of the floor.

It vaguely resembled a pepper shaker, about Cinque's height, painted a dull bronze and covered in small orbs. A camera sat at the end of a long pole emerging from its domed top, while a plunger and a hollow metal tube jutted out from its midsection. Two conical lights stuck out from the sides of its dome at forty-five degree angles.

"This is the most common variant, and is believed to be the original design" Warui explained, as Subaru and Cinque bent forwards to inspect it. "It is a hostile environment battlesuit piloted by the actual Dalek organism through some form of neural link. The armor coloration identifies this one as a basic combat drone, usually deployed in a subordinate role. That does _not_ mean they're stupid or lack initative, as you'll soon see." She waved her hand and four more Daleks appeared, colored blue, red, black, and gold respectively. "These colorations represent higher castes, in approximate order of rank."

"The Dalek's primary weapon," she continued, "is the 'gunstick'. It fires a powerful mass-based plasma discharge. The manipulator arm can be dangerous in close quarters, and more significantly allows the Dalek to interface with electronic devices, usually bypassing security measures in short order. Defensively, the Dalek has a forcefield and resilient armor, supplemented by a small AMF generator in newer models. There's more, but it's best to learn by doing."

"The first drill is simple. You will each have to engage and destroy a simulated Dalek, starting at a range of thirty meters. Cinque will go first" Warui concluded. She gestured again and the demonstration Daleks vanished, a new one appearing further away. Cinque nodded and stepped forwards. "On my mark... Begin!"

"Exterminate!" the Dalek screamed. Cinque immediately dived sideways, a blue bolt passing through the space she'd occupied. She flung two knives at the Dalek even before rolling into a crouch. They vanished in midair just centimeters short of the casing. Cinque nodded to herself, a yellow dome forming to intercept the next bolt, and launched four more knives. Right as they reached the point where the prior knives had vanished, they exploded.

"Casing impaired!" the Dalek howled, backing away frantically and shooting. Cinque dodged two more bolts and threw a final knife. This one struck armor just below the eyestalk before detonating. The dome shattered and the frontal plating cracked. Then the wreckage dissolved into light, signaling the end of the drill.

"Is that it?" Sein asked, sounding disappointed. "The way everyone kept going on about them, I thought they'd be pretty tough."

Warui snorted. "Compared to a Combat Cyborg or an A-rank mage? No, they're not that tough. Compared to an ordinary soldier? They're plenty tough. Also, you've just volunteered to be next." Sein grinned and stepped forwards as Cinque moved to join the others and Warui reset the drill. "On my mark... Begin!"

"Exterminate!" Sein flowed into the floor as the first shot sailed overhead. The tip of her index finger poked out slightly after the rest of her vanished. It zipped forwards, zig-zagging past each incoming shot as the Dalek frantically tried to burn through the floor plating.

"Elevate," the Dalek said, suddenly shooting into the air as Sein closed with it.

"No you don't!" Sein yelled, launching out of the ground. She hissed in pain as the Dalek fired again, striking her in the hip. It seemed the training room included an injury simulation system, and it ruled that the shot had slagged a chunk of her artificial musculature, her right leg suddenly barely able to support her weight and resisting her attempts to bend it. Her planned graceful leap turned into an undignified hop, but she made enough height. Her fingers almost brushed the Dalek casing, and then Sein convulsed in agony and fell to the floor.

Warui raised her hand and the Dalek froze. Sein stood up carefully, examining her arms, as the simulated pain cut off. Subaru dashed to her side. "Are you okay!?"

"Yes, I'm fine," Sein said shakily. "What was that?"

"The forcefield," Warui said, scratching herself behind her canine ears, looking apologetic. "There's a powerful energy discharge when you touch it. Which people usually discover when they try to stab it with their Device without thinking to add a shield-breaching spell."

Sein sighed. "So much for just reaching in and ripping up the wiring," she grumbled. "Sometimes I hate being the sneaky one." Sein turned towards their instructor, grimacing. "I could probably pound through that forcefield before it fried my arms completely, but definitely not while it's shooting at me."

"We'll get you something from the armory," Warui assured her. "Now, I'm going to remember to turn the pain emulators down to sixty percent, and then it's Subaru's turn..."

* * *

High Command turned out to consist of six people. One of them, a nervous-looking purple-haired young woman in glasses over her yellow eyes, was present via a holoscreen labeled "Infinite Librarian". The others were physically present, one wearing a black nun's habit and the rest in uniforms. Mazda, Otto, and Ginga stood at the edge of the room, trying to avoid notice. Ixpellia and her bodyguards had disappeared elsewhere to focus on replacing the Mariage core stockpiles depleted by the battle to protect the minefield site. The Doctor stood in the center of the room, pointing to holograms with his sonic screwdriver.

"Okay, so this map," the Doctor said, gesturing at a hologram of roughly evenly distributed lights in blue, orange, red, and grey, each tagged with a number and usually a name "is the dimensional space map of your pocket universe, and this one," consisting of the same dots, scattered wildly with some tight clusters and many giant empty gulfs, "is the physical map. The rift is at 179, I take it." The red dots spread outwards from 179 like a stain on the physical map, but were scattered largely at random on the dimensional map; the orange lights reversed that pattern. Grey dots appeared among and around the orange and red.

"Correct," Knight Leader Opel replied. "As you can see, we've actually got a relatively short path there; we're only about two days away from it, in fact. Unfortunately, after the third Neverwere countess arrived, the Could've Been King was forced back from the rift, and the Daleks have fortified it extensively. These worlds-"six red dots near 179 on the dimensional map brightened "-have projected a barrier into dimensional space. We'll have to destroy at least one of the generation facilities to get the fleet through, and we didn't have any way to seal the rift before."

The Doctor nodded. "The TARDIS can take care of that," he said. "The hard part will be getting there, and then dealing with the Daleks on this side."

"We can deactivate the minefield," general Lotec suggested, leaning forwards in his chair. "Then you could fly through via the Time Vortex, even maybe go to the start of the war and stop the rift from opening."

The Doctor shook his head. "Not against these Daleks," he said. "You just raised the minefield, but it's been up for the entire war or they'd have won before it started. Their temporal technology is primitive compared to the Time Lords, but still good enough to fight us throughout history. If you shut off the mines they'll be able to send an entire fleet into the Vortex to stop me. Not to mention what the rift might do to the TARDIS's navigation; she's hard to steer at the best of times. No, we'll have to do this the hard way. But maybe we can get some help." He gestured at the orange lights. "If we can get the Neverwere to attack the Daleks, we can use the distraction to make for the rift."

"That has historically been relatively easy," Librarian Alexia offered. "The Starlight Destroyer is likely to see through it, but the other two countesses are not very strategically adept."

"Could we negotiate with the Neverwere?" Admiral Haifei suggested. "A joint attack would be even more likely to succeed, and bad as they are they're better than Daleks."

The Doctor shrugged. "They might be inclined to do so, but they won't disobey the Could've Been King, and I haven't been able to get him to talk before. If he isn't on this side of the rift, he probably doesn't want it closed just yet."

"If you're sure you can close the rift," Opel said, "we should start preparing immediately. The sooner we can close the rift, the fewer Dalek ships we'll have to fight."

"Agreed," Admiral Haifei replied. "If at all possible we'll want to strike between two and three weeks from now; the Daleks' next assault will be in hyperspace but far enough from their target for us to strike and return while they're in transit." She turned towards the others. "What can we prepare in that timeframe?"

"Before that," Alexia interrupted. "There's something we need to give the Doctor; I'll have it sent to the _Finieno_ so you can load it onto the TARDIS. Assuming we win and you can leave, you'll need to take it back to Earth, 1969 AD, and ensure the data storage device is attached to a specific transmitter and set to broadcast at the event specified in the package."

"What?" the Doctor asked. "Why, what's so important? And why 1969?"

Alexia held up a picture, showing a brownish humanoid face without a visible mouth. The rest of High Command looked puzzled, then concerned. Ginga frowned, thinking it looked familiar. Something she'd seen in her childhood, in a video from the family teaching her about their homeworld's recent history-

 _You should kill us all on sight_

Ginga's fist clenched and she began to step forward, before consciously realizing there was nothing to kill, followed by wondering why she'd leapt to obey the creature's order. Otto put a restraining hand on her left shoulder.

"This is critical to maintaining the integrity of the universe, and there is no reason for you to question the purpose behind these instructions," Alexia said, then lowered the picture out of the frame and the other's memories. Flawless Secretary clicked away in her head, keeping the image of the face in her mind at all times, as she'd set it to the third time she'd seen the picture, and realized how she'd forgotten the first two times.

The Doctor blinked in confusion, then shook himself. "I suppose you wouldn't be telling me to do that if it wasn't important. I'll take care of it."

* * *

"Exterminate!"

"Protection," Mach Caliber responded. A barrier popped into place to intercept the first shot. Subaru skated forwards, zigzagging on her approach. Two shots missed, another slammed into the barrier.

"Elevate." The Dalek shot upwards, firing as it rose. Subaru's barrier intercepted another shot, visibly cracking.

"Wing Road." Two blue paths formed in front of Subaru's feet, leading directly towards the Dalek. It fired again, shattering the barrier, but by then Subaru was upon it.

"Barrier Break!" Subaru shouted, shoving her Revolver Knuckle forwards open-handed. She felt power draining away from her spell under the influence of the AMF, but she'd prepared for it, putting more power in to compensate. As she'd hoped, the mechanically-projected shield tore apart just like a magical one. Her fingers touched metal. "Vibration Shatter!" The Dalek armature exploded, depositing a one-eyed tentacle creature onto the road Subaru formed.

Subaru turned and grinned, relaxing. "That wasn't-"She stumbled suddenly as something latched onto her back. A tentacle wrapped around her throat, constricting against her barrier. Subaru flailed in a panic, ripping the Dalek creature off her throat and smashing it to pulp. With the third blow, it and its wrecked armor dissolved into light.

"One of the other lessons it's best to learn by doing, when it won't kill you." Warui called. "Daleks aren't just brains in robot suits. They're not that dangerous, but don't let your guard down."

Subaru sighed in relief and skated back to the others. Sein perked up at her approach, apparently glad to not be the only person to have trouble. Deed stepped forwards, pulling out a pair of hilts. "Activate Inherent Skill: Twin Blade." Blazing blades snapped into existence from the hilts.

"Begin!" Warui called. Deed dashed forwards, catching incoming shots on the flats of her swords. When the Dalek attempted to fly out of reach, Deed simply followed it upwards. Her blades burned against the shield. It held for a moment, then the swords broke through and sliced apart armor and creature alike. The Dalek dissolved into light, and Deed deactivated her blades and flew back.

"Well done," Warui said. "Let's move on to a more realistic scenario; we've blocked out four hours for you to attempt it today." She gestured, and suddenly a massive metal structure dominated the center of the room. "You're not expected to succeed on your first attempt; your objective is to cripple or preferably destroy a grounded Dalek saucer and then exit. It usually carries about two thousand Daleks, but most of them will be deployed elsewhere for a ground engagement. But you'll still have to-"

Sein stood up, smiling smugly. "I think we've heard all we need to know. Big sis, let's go. Subaru and Deed can wait for us to come back."

Warui rolled her eyes. "I guess the rest of the explanation can wait until your next attempt."

* * *

Fifteen minutes later Sein rose out of the ground holding Cinque under the shoulders. Cinque snapped her fingers and the saucer blew apart behind her.

Knight-Captain Warui stared at them, then stared at the fading saucer, then back at them. "Mistress Opel told me that you came from a more peaceful and innocent time and would have mostly worked in disaster response and helping pilgrims."

"Ooh, that sounds like fun," Sein said. "My last job was 'dimensional terrorist'; I'm looking for a new one."

"We should have waited for the rest of the briefing," Cinque scolded her. "We could have saved some time if we knew what would cause secondary explosions instead of just putting explosives everywhere in the engine room."

"Next time I'll ask Alexia," Warui muttered. "Let's start introducing you to various types of Degradations." She gestured, and a new armature formed. This one had a Dalek dome and eyepiece over a transparent cylinder containing a humanoid torso. Three segments of Dalek casing, with the same orbs on them as on the standard Dalek, radiated out around it on black metal arms. Two energy weapons jutted out on the sides in sponsons. "This variant is known as a 'Glider'."

* * *

"-We'll only be able to supply that force for four weeks without longer to prepare, but we can withdraw as soon as the rift is sealed," General Lotec concluded.

Admiral Haifei nodded and turned to Alexia's projection. "Librarian, any applicable Lost Logia?"

"Very few left," Alexia admitted, eyes unfocusing. "Outside of Failsafe, we only have four Jewel Seeds. It may be possible to activate Failsafe with as few as seven, but each one removed reduces the likelihood of complete success."

The Doctor broke in before she could move to the next topic. "What's Failsafe?" he asked.

"Our last resort," Opel explained. "The Distortion Wall traps the Daleks in here, but if they can secure all the generation sites they'll be able to deactivate it eventually. It's not a simple or fast process, and it'll take them a long time to even figure out how, but with uncontested control over the entire bubble universe we project they'll be finished within a millennium, even if we destroy the Infinity Library before they can seize it, and they can't draw knowledge from other timelines using Magi-type Degredations. We cannot allow that. Therefore, in the tenth year of the war, it was decided that in the event of the TSAB's total defeat, we will use the Jewel Seeds to their fullest. Release the power that destroyed Al-hazard, destroy the entire bubble universe with a dimensional quake. Ten Jewel Seeds, and an amplification station, have been allocated to that task."

"I understand," the Doctor said. "I won't let it come to that. Not again."

Alexia continued, barely seeming to have noticed the interruption. "Beyond the Jewel Seeds, the Shutran Stonebreaker can be used for ground bombardment or in golem-generation mode, but it's hardcoded to recognize Mariage as hostile; we can't use its golems within seventy kilometers of Mariage. The Bible Of The Silver Cross could be deployed, but we've yet to succeed in recreating the Eclipse Virus, so there is no possibility of controlling it beyond deciding where to activate it. The Path Disruptor will be able to shield a battlegroup and redirect, on average, ninety-three percent of incoming fire, but its other function is to interdict dimensional space overlaying the system; the fleet will be trapped while it is active and for between eight and fourteen hours afterwards. We've yet to figure out how or if those effects can be triggered separately, and this will not affect Dalek hyperspace drives. Every other Lost Logia still in storage is either of no tactical value or likely to damage our fleet as much or more than the Daleks even under ideal conditions."

"Besides those, there are the recoverable Lost Logia from the Burn Systems," Alexia said, raising her hand along the edge of her screen. One of the grey markers in the twin maps, labeled 37, pulsed. "Between power and our ability to control it, the best option is here. Ixpellia will be recognized by the Pflanzenpuppe constructs, but the Neverwere have patrols in the outer system, and we believe the original team was unable to reconfigure the IFF before the Daleks reached their position, so there's no guarantee the infested vessels will recognize any ship besides the one Ixpellia is personally on as friendly until she reaches the core generator. Similarly, there is no guarantee it understood Dalek technology well enough to ensure all deployed systems were completely incapacitated or controlled."

"And that second part is where I come in," the Doctor guessed. "If I go down to the planet with her, I can shut down any traps they've left behind."

Opel nodded. "Special Assault Division Eight can get her to the planet; the _Finieno_ can survive solo engagement with the Neverwere patrols long enough for the Pflanzenpuppe to intervene. On the ground, will she be able to keep constructs from attacking her escorts?" Alexia nodded absently. "Then between the ground component, Mariage, and you, Ixpellia can get to the core and retrieve it even if a Neverwere Countess teleports in to stop her."

"A pretty big gamble," the Doctor noted. "You could lose Ixpellia, the unit you think is most useful for this kind of operation, and the TARDIS. Is it worth it?" All eyes turned to Alexia.

Alexia started, her attention turning away from the data unspooling behind her eyes. "Um, yes, I think," she said, wilting under their gazes. "There's no way to know how many still have functional interstellar drives, but Pflanzenpuppe currently infest over a thousand Dalek derelicts and between two and three hundred TSAB or Neverwere ships of varying size. And if the core generator makes planetfall on 163," she highlighted one of the barrier generation planets, "it will be able to subvert the remaining biosphere to assist a ground assault."

"I see," the Doctor said. "One more question: where did Knight-Captain Warui's name come from?"

"What?" Opel blinked in confusion. "Um, I needed a name for a familiar and asked Alexia for suggestions."

"I couldn't think of one myself, so I checked _John Smith's Big Book Of Pet Names_ and used wolf, female, silver, and her familiar ritual as date of birth," Alexia said. "Does it matter?"

"Quite a bit, actually," the Doctor said, grinning. "I need to know her ritual date and when and where that book was first published, and Colonel Mazda needs to get her people ready. We'll be taking your big bad wolf to World 37. I've got an artifact to help recover, a war to win, and a book to write."

Everyone in the room stared at him uncertainly. Alexia coughed. "According to the histories, when he acts like this it means he's come up with a plan and it's probably going to work," she said apologetically. "And he wants us to ask what it is so he can show off how clever he is."

"What is the significance of the book?" Otto asked obligingly.

"It's not nearly as much fun when I know you're just doing it to make me happy," the Doctor complained.


	14. Chapter 14

"Razor Extermination!" the simulated Knight Degradation bellowed, bronze-colored magical circles written in a language of elaborate curves Ginga couldn't read forming in front of the gemstones along the midsection. Ginga turned sharply, and only a handful of the sudden blizzard of metal needles grazed her barrier jacket.

"Knuckle Bunker," Blitz Calibur called. Power surged into her left fist, and slammed through the Degredation's own barrier in an explosive burst. It shattered more dramatically than the last one she'd hit; this one hadn't raised its AMF. She continued on, rounding a burned-out office building, and saw her mission objective floating in midair, a curved claw around a levitating red sphere replacing the standard Dalek gunstick, and in a horrifically familiar blue-white color scheme. Its dome whirled to face her as it slid sideways towards the wall.

"Annihilation Bust-" the elite Mage Degredation froze up midspell, then tumbled from the air. Sein waved at Ginga from inside the wall, clutching a hunk of torn wiring in her freshly-issued disruption glove. Ginga smiled and waved back, brought her fist down on the disabled armature to kill the creature inside, then turned around and headed towards the extraction point.

A trio of Knight Degredations intercepted her, swooping out of the sky with four summoned blades apiece dancing in front of them. One blew apart as it left its evasive dance too early and Otto's Ray Storm cored it from a hidden perch, concealed from their more esoteric senses by Stealth Jacket. Ginga swerved towards the leftmost survivor, smashing it apart with another enhanced blow, this one struggling against the AMF. The last one was able to get its blades in play, forcing Ginga to lean rightwards and catch one with her Revolver Knuckle as another tore her jacket along her ribcage. She snapped the caught blade, punched downwards to shatter another, and backed off.

Shorn of two of its blades, the Knight Degredation avoided closing. "Slasher Call," it intoned. More blades began forming. Ginga brought her fist forwards, unleashing Knuckle Bunker's energy pulse from a distance. As planned, it tore into the Degredation before it could restore the AMF it had dropped to replace its blades. Ginga skated past the wreckage and reached the boundary line of the exercise. +++I'm clear, withdraw+++ she sent to her siblings.

"Well done," Knight-Captain Warui told her as she arrived. "I'd rather have more time to train you, of course, but you've impressed me so far. We're shipping out in ten hours, and I'll be glad to have you aboard. In the meantime, get some sleep."

Ginga nodded gratefully, then asked, "Why are you bringing us? Wouldn't it make more sense to bring some other veterans from this time period instead?"

Warui shrugged one shoulder. "It would," she said bluntly. "When Mistress Opel asked me if I thought you'd be ready I told her that after familiarizing you with Daleks I'd approve you for the A-plus slots in a reserve line company, but if you were slated for us I'd want another three months in sims first, and since I couldn't have that I'd rather borrow Tenth Aerial's elites than send you out early. She told the Doctor that, he told her he wanted you anyway, the Librarian stared at nothing for thirty seconds and said if the Doctor wanted you somewhere, that was where you'd go."

"We went to a lot of trouble to get him here so he could tell us what to do," Des added. "Not much point in doing that if we're not going to listen."

* * *

Des silently repeated that to herself when the Doctor insisted on having everyone on the bridge again during combat situations. She'd only brought them last time because it seemed less disruptive than finding somewhere to stow them, and now wished she hadn't set that precedent. True, Sanzenko and the crew used a telepathic link to communicate and the cyborg could talk and fly simultaneously just fine, but it was the principle of the thing. Even if Ixpellia looked adorable sitting with her back against Warui's wolf form.

For the moment, they'd run out of things to discuss in transit, and gotten the Doctor familiarized with his comm earring so he didn't have to modify every Device in the TSAB to use telepathy. Sanzenko was wired into her chair, with the TARDIS residents and ground component commanders arrayed behind her, the two command-variant Mariage huddling around their king.

"This is as close as we can get in dimensional space before the disruption field gets too dense," Sanzenko announced. The tactical screen showed the layout of Neverwere patrols, hanging well back from the seething mass of ships around the planet. The _Finieno_ was aiming for a weak point in the patrols, hopefully enough to avoid close range engagement during the approach. "We're about five minutes from the Pflanzenpuppe's reaction zone, and another ten from orbit. Transiting... now."

The ship dropped into normal space, and an alarm shrieked as seven more Neverwere appeared on the map, much closer to the _Finieno_ 's arrival point than the rest. Sanzenko raised another screen to show them in visual as their power cores came online. Four cruisers, two battleships, and one ship dwarfing the rest, all in black and red.

"It's a trap," Sanzenko said tightly. "The _Hellfire Star_ was waiting for us. We're being hailed."

A screen formed in the air, separate from the ones the _Finieno_ was projecting for itself, showing a tight zoom on a ten-year-old girl dressed in black and red, faint orange light eddying around her. In her left hand she held a staff, topped with a curved metal section hooking around a blue gemstone and terminating with a spike. A pair of cylindrical radiators and a banana-shaped clip extended from the side just below the gemstone. Her piercing blue eyes surveyed the bridge. Red light struck highlights from her brown hair.

"I am Countess Stern," she announced. "Material of Wisdom, Starlight Destroyer, champion of the Neverwere. Surrender, and your lives will be spared." Then she looked at Des and smiled slightly. "I have missed getting to fight you, Destiny." Des gave her a frustrated glare.

"Your negotiating position isn't as good as you think," Colonel Mazda said, folding her arms. "You can't destroy us before the derelicts arrive."

"Perhaps, perhaps not," Stern replied calmly. "But I risk little in the attempt, while you risk everything."

"But if you succeed," the Doctor said, "you lose quite a lot." Stern looked at him curiously. "If you destroy this ship, you'll be weakening the TSAB against the Daleks. Without that pressuring them, the Daleks will be able to focus their attention on you. But if you don't stop us, we'll take this weapon and deploy it against the Daleks."

Stern frowned and opened her mouth to reply, when a voice broke in from offscreen. "Hey, Stern," an irritated girl yelled, "Stop talking to them already and attack them!"

Stern glanced aside and bowed her head. "Yes, my king," she said, and the screen winked out. Every Neverwere ship in the system adjusted course, heading towards the _Finieno_.

"Was she on the bridge or in the nexus?" Sanzenko asked.

"Nexus," Des said darkly. "You can tell by the red. She lights her bridge like a normal person." Sanzenko sighed.

"Now would be an excellent time to hear you weren't bluffing," the Doctor told Mazda.

"The odds aren't as good as I'd like," she replied. "Technologically, they're antiques, but- well, you know more than me. Thankfully they're more tough than deadly, and we're still well clear of the regular patrols. We'll probably make it, but there's no guarantee. Ix?"

Ixpellia nodded and took a deep breath. +++Defenders of Galea, attend and obey! Your king commands your aid! Proceed to our side without delay and burn our foes to ash!+++ She sighed and settled back, then muttered "I can't believe I used to talk like that."

"Setting counter-magical configuration," Sanzenko announced. "Three, two, one, initiating." The main screens vanished, replaced by a trio of lower-resolution holograms showing the map, a frontal view, and a rear view. Barrier jackets fuzzed away, revealing the standard uniforms. The ship turned, slightly more sluggishly than usual, and oriented towards the _Hellfire Star_ 's escorts, focusing on a battleship nearly as large as the _Finieno,_ only around half the size of the Neverwere flagship.

The _Finieno_ fired first, the ship rocking. This time, no magical circles appeared on the screen and the projectiles were visibly slower than before. The battleship evaded two of the rounds, and the other two vanished short of its barrier in the furious white of the minefield as they shifted into the Time Vortex. Then the Neverwere returned fire in a storm of magical beams, and the reason the _Finieno_ had half-crippled itself became clear.

If the full power of the barrage had struck the _Finieno_ , it would have burned into vapor, but instead the incoming fire distorted and shriveled as it neared. The smaller beams disappeared entirely under the might of the _Finieno_ 's AMF, and the rest were met by a mechanical forcefield.

Sanzenko grinned exultantly and maneuvered the ship back onto target, letting momentum keep them on course for the planet. The gunners picked their moment and the railguns fired again, this time only losing one round to the Vortex with the rest hitting their target dead on, smashing through the ship's barrier. Fire bloomed momentarily before vacuum pulled the oxygen away, and the Neverwere ship staggered out of formation. The characteristic orange light brightened and gathered around the rents. Then the Doctor's screwdriver whined and the light blinked out.

"How did you do that?" Warui asked him as Sanzenko decided to retarget rather than continue pounding the battleship, twisting the ship to evade the _Hellfire Star_ 's main battery and letting the rest of the retaliatory barrage crumble under the AMF.

"Old war tactic," the Doctor explained. "Can't normally disrupt their ambient Vortex energy, but when they concentrate it to revert a TARDIS can cancel it out. I have it rigged up on remote. They'll be able to accumulate more, but it'll be several hours."

"In other words, long after Ix's subjects get here," Mazda said, nodding at the rear view hologram. Two dozen Dalek saucers escorted a Neverwere battleship towards them, this one without light swirling around it. Even with the grainy resolution of the electronic hologram, they could see great tears in the armor of most of the ships. Some of the Dalek saucers had sections buckled inwards as though they'd been crushed in an enormous hand, and the Neverwere battleship's bridge was open to space. Dead wood and withered vines coated them all, running in through the breaches. More clusters of dead ships trailed along behind.

Subaru frowned at them. "Wait, if Ixy can command them to help us, why couldn't we bring other ships?"

"With no brain to reconstruct, the Pflanzenpuppe are too simple-minded," one of Ixpellia's bodyguards replied dismissively. "Even the crudest of Galea's weapons will recognize the presence of their king, but they barely have the wit to control the ships. Do not stray far from her majesty when we land."

"If they aren't attacking the ship because she is aboard," Otto said, "what will happen when she descends to the planet?"

There was a long, awkward silence, broken only by the rumble of another two railgun volleys.

"I could order them to send all warships to the outer system before teleporting down," Ixpellia suggested.

"Good idea," the Doctor said. Another barrage flashed towards them and withered. "You'd think they'd have figured out only the big guns work on us by now."

"They knew that from the start. They're setting up for their Countess," Mazda said tensely. An enormous vermillion circle formed around the _Hellfire Star_ , Midchildan runes scribed along its outer edge. Blazing sparks formed around the entire formation, melding with the Vortex light rising off the Neverwere ships and gathering in front of the _Hellfire Star._ A firey orb grew, rings of light expanding around it.

"Saint King preserve us," Warui prayed. "Cast your holy armor before us."

+++Ship-amplified Breaker incoming!+++ Sanzenko broadcast.


	15. Chapter 15

The blazing sphere expanded, then raged forwards in an enormous beam aimed at the _Finieno_. Sanzenko dove towards the bottom of the beam, rotating the ship to present the smallest possible target profile. The Breaker spell, amplified by the scattered mana from the Neverwere guns, battered through the AMF and forcefield alike. The ship shook, the impact overwhelming the inertial compensators.

"Shield down," Sanzenko reported, her connection to the ship feeding the information directly to her. "We've lost one of the main guns and all starboard secondaries and point defense. Maneuverability is reduced by nine percent. Hull breach on the ventral surface."

"Five Mariage offline. Three damaged but functional," a Mariage reported.

"Can we still make orbit?" Colonel Mazda asked.

"Maybe," Sanzenko replied. "Our AMF is still active, and they'll have to break off pursuit soon. But we can't take many hits."

"Continue the mission," Mazda ordered, clasping her hands together to hide her nails digging into her palms.

Sanzenko nodded, slewing the ship again. Three beams burned along the _Finieno_ 's hull, cutting through the armor. The forward screen fuzzed with static, then snapped back at a lower resolution as the surviving sensors reconfigured. The surviving railguns fired back, the round on the right trailing behind the two on the left. The first two to hit the Neverwere battleship smashed through its remaining barrier and shattered one of the main engine sections, throwing it off-course. The last round struck it amidships but lacked the energy to punch all the way through the armor. Finally, the battleship decided to risk reversion, and the Doctor activated his screwdriver again.

The crippled battleship limped away, as the cruisers and flagship continued the pursuit. The _Finieno_ evaded most of another volley, one cruiser cannon scraping along an intact section of armor on the port flank.

Then light bloomed in the rear screen, an enormous Dalek missile barrage emerging from the derelict. The Neverwere formation pivoted, accelerating towards the nearest of the regular patrols. The missiles homed inwards on the Neverwere, vanishing under point defense fire. Most of the barrage swept in towards the _Hellfire Star_ and detonated against an enormous protection spell.

"Should we take the chance to destroy their flagship?" Subaru asked, leaning forwards.

Colonel Mazda shook her head firmly. "With its countess in the nexus, focusing on defense, we're not going to break through. We'll let her run and take the chance to get in close enough to force through the anti-teleport field."

"And that range is determined by how much magical power the ship can generate?" the Doctor guessed, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes. It's probably longer for her," Des said, sighing.

"Not that much longer," Sanzenko assured them. "At least, not if she wants to come back; she's the only one who can operate her nexus properly."

* * *

Forty minutes later, they'd reached orbit, lowered the AMF, and sent the Pflanzenpuppe ships far enough away they wouldn't automatically register the _Finieno_ as a threat. Now the living members of the ground expedition were gathered in the teleportation room.

"First unit has teleported down," a command Mariage reported. "No hostiles in the landing zone. Her majesty may descend when ready."

Colonel Mazda nodded. "Teleport us in," she directed. Light built up around them, and bare metal walls dissolved away, replaced by a shattered, overgrown parking lot. Dead tree roots cracked the asphalt, brown grass writhing on the medians. Mariage and Daleks coated in runes glowing the same color as Mariage eyeslits ringed the area.

"We are one mile from the primary core," the command Mariage informed the group. A large concentration of destroyed Daleks and their warships surround the research base. None have responded to our presence so far."

"We'll go in low," Colonel Mazda directed. "Don't get above the second story. Keep the Doctor safe."

One of the Skaro Mariages rotated its dome, pointing its eyestalk at the group. "Protect her majesty or you will be exterminated," it grated.

"Protect her majesty. Obey. Obey!" the other Skaro Mariages chorused. Several dozen of them rose into the air and scattered outwards, moving to scout the streets ahead.

"Does that ever stop being creepy?" the Doctor asked.

"No," Special Assault Division Eight and the command Mariages replied in unison.

"Don't disturb any flora if at all possible," Ixpellia reminded them. "If you're attacked by Pflanzenpuppe, raise a barrier and wait for a Mariage to come help you." Subaru and Ginga promptly generated a glowing path for the ground-bound members of the team, doubling up their Wing Road castings, while Sein slipped down through a reasonably large piece of intact asphalt. Cinque led the main group, the Doctor a half-step behind her with his screwdriver buzzing. The rest of the living walked in a tight knot around Ixpellia and her two shadows, escorted by twenty Skaro Mariage while a hundred regular Mariage followed behind them. More walked through the street ahead, searching for obvious threats.

They proceeded down the center of a roadway through the wreckage of an office park. Aside from the dead plants, roots and branches orienting towards the group as they passed, the buildings were scored by plasma burns and explosions. Shortly after leaving the parking lot, they passed the first ruined Daleks, pausing to let the Doctor scan them and confirm they were truly inert. The density of the wreckage increased rapidly, standard Daleks interspersed with Degradations.

"Where are all the bodies?" Cinque asked, as they paused by an intersection choked with spider-like Degradations, creeping ivy growing through neat hulls punched through their domes. "I can't imagine you'd leave anything this powerful unguarded, unless they caught you by surprise, and then there'd be civilians."

"They were converted, then lost in battle" one of the Mariage replied. "Her majesty was elsewhere, but they had a substantial supply of cores." Cinque looked over the wreckage again, now noticing the odd patterning of the blast marks on the street.

"Here we go," the Doctor said. "Powered up targeting system on that one, running in autonomous mode." The screwdriver shifted tone. "Inactive now."

As they started forwards again, Ixpellia stumbled, falling forwards. Before she hit the glowing path, Subaru reached down and grabbed her. "Got you," Subaru said cheerfully.

"Thank you," Ixpellia said, then tensed as a deafening rustling rose up all around them. +++Let go of me and hold still! Now!+++

Subaru hastily complied, seeing branches peeling away from buildings. The dead spider Degredations stood, turning to bring intact guns to aim at Subaru as the Doctor grabbed Cinque's arm before she could summon her knives. Wood shifted into metal, a forest of blades pointing towards Subaru.

Then Ixpellia's bodyguards intervened, one twisting Subaru's arms behind her back, the other forming a tribarrel machine gun to level at Subaru's head. +++Kneel!+++ Ixpellia signaled frantically. As Subaru complied, the rustling quieted, and the Pflanzenpuppe settled back into their passive state.

Ixpellia sighed in relief. "That was close."

"Can you let her go now?" Des asked, glancing nervously at the street.

"We should move her to the back of the formation first," the Mariage restraining Subaru replied. "They now register her as a threat. If she approaches her majesty again while unrestrained, or appears to be left unguarded, they will react." Subaru let herself be dragged to her feet and walked back through the formation.

"Keep moving," Colonel Mazda ordered. "And be careful."

+++I'm starting to understand why you stick these things in boxes+++ the Doctor commented as they resumed walking.

+++Mine are particularly bad+++ Ixpellia admitted. +++I'm not sure what we'll do about the Mariage if we run out of Daleks to fight+++

Several blocks later, as they paused to scan half a wrecked Dalek saucer, the command Mariage spoke up. "There is recent battle damage ahead," it reported. "Within the past week, Neverwere attacked Pflanzenpuppe around the research station. There is no sign of the attackers, but the area has not yet been fully recolonized."

"The core is still there," Ixpellia said.

"The attackers must have been driven off," Warui suggested. "Otherwise they'd still be fighting the Pflanzenpuppe."

"You're probably right," the Doctor said, focusing on his screwdriver, "but I doubt they'd attack unprepared."

+++Who says they were trying to get in?+++ Sein sent, listening to them on a relay from Blitz Calibur. +++They've burned away most of our 'allies' here, and it doesn't look like we have good lines of fire. If we have to fight that countess here we could have trouble+++

+++Look for a way around+++ the Doctor instructed her. +++We'll wait here+++ Sein sent an acknowledgement.

Fifteen minutes later she reported back. +++No luck+++ she sent. +++The cleared area goes all around the station. There's a lot of Pflanzenpuppe in a wrecked warehouse on the northern edge, but if the Daleks left traps there…+++

+++Understood+++ the Doctor sent. He turned to the colonel. "I don't know if I'll be able to detect traps indoors, especially not with all the wood in the way. I've got to make a setting for wood."

"Might as well take the shortest path, then" she replied. "Ix, bring as many as you can."

+++Our guardians! Proceed before us, make our path ready!+++ The ground shifted, some of the dead trees pulling free. The more intact of the overgrown Dalek armatures shifted into motion, forming up behind the Mariage on the ground. Some of them flew up to join the Skaro units.

As they entered the cleared area, Des looked around, frowning. "Pretty odd place for Stern to fight us in," she noted, as they wove around saucers too badly wrecked to fly again. "She'd have been better off at our arrival point, where she could stand off and bombard us. Here is more suited to Levi…" Her eyes widened. "Oh no."

Light flared all around them, Neverwere soldiers warping in on the surrounding buildings and the air above. Rather than the black and red of the warships they'd been fighting, their barrier jackets were in black and electric blue. "Armored Grace!" Warui shouted, bringing a green hemisphere into existence around the formation just in time to intercept a shower of glowing orbs, each cluster in the personal color of its casting mage.

The Galean constructs responded at once; the Pflanzenpuppe trees formed their branches into metal claws and began climbing the buildings to close with the Neverwere. The vines fused into Dalek shells slewed their remaining guns to bombard the rooftops. Mariage rushed into the buildings in search of remaining stairwells.

"Right attachment weapon form heavy energy cannon. Exterminate the Neverwere! Exterminate!"

"Leave the regulars to the Mariage!" Mazda called over the furious howling of the Skaro Mariages. "Stay close, focus on their fliers! Separate Levi from the rest!" She raised her staff, pointing it towards the eight fliers streaking towards them. "Solar barrage," her staff said, ejecting a cartridge, a spray of dozens of narrow yellowish beams flashing out. Five of the attackers scattered, pulling up above the attack. The other three raised shields and charged forwards. The tiny cloaked figure in the center of the formation pulled ahead, hurling through the center of the barrage behind a blue shield wrapped with Time Vortex orange.

Des stepped in front of the colonel, bringing Protecting Heart up to intercept the attacker's axe. Her opponent laughed, blue twintails fluttering behind her as she continued pushing against Des' naginata. "I wanted Stern to let me bring Zappy, but this is even better!" she said cheerfully. "I just wish original was here; I'm sure she'd love to meet you."

" _We're not even genetically related!_ " Des yelled, giving ground under the Neverwere countess's assault. The base of her naginata skidded along a curving path against the surface of the Wing Road beneath her as her grip weakened.

Ginga moved to intervene, then had to turn to meet the rush of one of the others. She brought her left fist up to block the Neverwere's mace, grunting at the impact. Deed's blades flashed into being as the other close-quarters Neverwere mage dove towards the colonel with his hand-and-a-half sword. He pulled up short, his blade clashing with Deed's left sword while her right sword sliced across his barrier jacket.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Neverwere aerial contingent opened fire. Warui called up another area shield, which crumbled under three simultaneous energy beams, and another two lashed at Mazda. Her own shield shattered, and she staggered under the impact. Otto and Cinque stepped in, a spray of daggers and greenish energy beams forcing the fliers to shelter behind their shields.

"Come on, take this seriously," Levi chided as she continued pressing Des back. "I know you're strong enough to be fun."

Des suddenly ducked, throwing her weight into pushing Protecting Heart's base forwards, its path closing a circle at the point it first hit the pathway. "Sacred flare," Protecting Heart said, pink light blasting upwards from the circle. Levi dropped onto the Wing Road surface, her cloak smoldering. Des stood and whirled Protecting Heart into a hasty downwards chop, aiming to strike Levi's head before she could recover. Levi brought her axe up just in time to catch the descending blade on the haft, and Des pulled back, raising Protecting Heart into a guard position.

+++Is there some reason they aren't targeting us?+++ the Doctor asked Ixpellia, doing his level best to shelter behind Cinque as dead Daleks blazed away at the Neverwere infantry. Behind him, the two command Mariage fired anti-tank cannons at the Neverwere fliers. The Neverwere evaded their shots and deflected Otto and Cinque's bombardments, periodically firing off quick spells as they found the opportunity. Warui raised remote shields to intercept their shots.

+++Levi's probably forgotten what she's supposed to be doing+++ Ixpellia replied. A metal sphere phased into existence between her hands, and she let it go to fly towards the building to the right. +++She's pretty easily distracted, and her bodyguards only tell Stern they let her go off alone and get hurt once+++

Subaru gritted her teeth and expended a cartridge, expanding Wing Road outwards to open a path for the Mariage behind her to support her sisters at the front. Deed's opponent was already backing into the air, struggling to parry her simultaneous strikes. Deed left him to the Mariage and turned to help Des. Ginga's foe stood her ground, throwing a binding at the first two Mariage to approach. Ginga glanced over at Deed, then hammered at her opponent with simple enhanced punches.

Levi turned and rushed at Deed, moving too fast for the eye to follow. Deed barely brought her swords up in time to parry. Des pointed her naginata at Levi's back. "Divine Shooter Assault" Protecting Heart said, dozens of pink orbs forming and flying towards Levi.

She leapt upwards, zig-zagging through the air as the orbs struggled to track her. The barrage passed beneath her, splitting up to chase after the still-distant fliers, and she turned to dive at Des, her axehead rotating ninety degrees and blue energy extending out into a scythe blade beneath it. Des sidestepped and tried to stab Levi, her naginata hurling through empty air as Levi flitted behind her, cutting open Des's left arm. Deed hurled over, striking at Levi's neck and chest. Levi leapt over both her blades, directly into three of Otto's Ray Storm beams. Levi caught them easily on another blue-orange shield, grinned, and turned to attack Deed. Then six pink orbs from Des's attack slammed into the back of her head, sending her reeling.

"One of these days she's going to stop falling for that," Des muttered, following up with a diagonal downwards strike. Orange light surged around her naginata, and its descent slowed to a crawl. "Sonic Strike," she growled, accelerating her swing within the time distortion. Deed struck at Levi simultaneously. The Time Vortex light around Levi brightened as she generated shields to meet them both simultaneously.

Colonel Mazda struggled back to her feet, turning her staff towards the flying Neverwere. "Solar Hammer," her staff said, ejecting a pair of cartridges, a dozen beams forming around her and converging towards one mage holding a carbine-shaped Device. The beams hammered through his shield and sent him tumbling to the ground with neat holes burned through his barrier jacket. Orange light gathered around his wounds, then winked out with the whir of a sonic screwdriver. Cinque tossed another trio of knives at the downed mage as he hit the ground, and Ix sent a sphere in his direction.

On the surrounding rooftops, the Pflanzenpuppe were tearing into the Neverwere, continuing to attack even as branches and blades were blown away by conjured bullets or cut apart with blades projected from staves. The Mariage had found roof accesses in the two closest buildings, and the Neverwere infantry gave ground, killing several of their opponents for each of them that fell, but not fast enough to stem the tide of the dead. Exploding Mariage shattered their lines, killing some of them outright and mauling others. The wounded were yanked back by their comrades, and they quickly stood back up, their wounds vanishing under the touch of orange light. The Vortex energy dispersed as they recovered, dimmer than before.

Ginga's opponent let her attention slip as Mariage closed in, and Ginga struck. "Storm Tooth," Blitz Calibur said as she slammed her left fist through a hastily-formed barrier to slam into her opponent's right shoulder, then knocked down the Neverwere with a second enhanced punch to the sternum. Ginga turned away as the Mariage started hacking downwards and moved to join the battle with Levi.

Mazda unleashed another broad-area blast, pinning the remaining long-range Neverwere behind their shields. Without incoming fire to worry about, Warui switched to the offensive. "Holy Bind," she said, green chains wrapping around a staff-wielding Neverwere. The command Mariage fired, and the mage dropped, torso reduced to a smoking ruin as the anti-tank rounds blew through the barrier jacket.

Levi rushed at Des again, restoring her Device to axe mode. Her aura of Time Vortex light intensified further as she smashed through Des's protection spell and struck Protecting Heart hard enough to force Des to one knee. Deed and Ginga moved to intervene, and "Lightning Blade Shock" sounded from Levi's Device, echoing oddly. Lances of crackling blue energy formed, four apiece hurling at the cyborgs. Deed paused as she deflected the attack, while Ginga took it on her jacket and slammed her Revolver Knuckle into a protection spell even as Levi struck at Des again.

+++Can you cancel her abilities out?+++ Mazda asked the Doctor, keeping an eye on Levi while tracking the sword-wielding Neverwere as he fought to safely disengage from the Mariage.

+++Only if she reverts+++ he replied. +++You'll have to get at least one good hit in first+++

+++Just keep her busy for a bit longer+++ Ixpellia sent, generating another sphere.

"Mariage is online," sounded from one of the surrounding buildings, the first voice rapidly joined by others. The Neverwere had been too hard-pressed to thoroughly destroy their own dead, and as Mariage stood up among their own ranks, the shrinking clusters fell apart in seconds. With the buildings around them rapidly clearing, the Skaro Mariage turned their focus to the Neverwere elites. Volleys of energy bolts hammered against the Neverwere shields and forced Levi to dodge away from Des. She turned her attention to her new attackers, her cape vanishing as she bolted past Deed and slashed apart one of the Skaro Mariage. By the time it self-destructed, she'd moved on to cut apart another two, evading a quartet of knives thrown by Cinque.

+++Des, threshold level. You take this one; Levi is the primary target+++ Mazda instructed. Des nodded and planted her naginata in front of her, blood streaming down her left arm. Protecting Heart whirred, ejecting four cartridges in quick succession. Circles spread above and below her, and pink sparks formed in the air, rushing inwards towards her.

"Starlight-"she began.

"Starlight Overdrive" Protecting Heart chanted.

"Overdrive!" Des finished. Pink light blazed around her, forming into a translucent suit of amor and four wings trailing behind. She moved with blurring speed, rapidly catching up to Levi. Levi slashed at her, the axe skipping off the glowing armor, then backed up and parried three quick strikes from Des. Des's fourth strike grazed Levi's ribcage, slicing through her barrier jacket as easily as paper.

Levi laughed in delight. "Finally," she said, "you take way too long to get going." Her axe shifted back into scythe form and elongated as she blocked another two slashes. "Now we can-" Her expression suddenly shifted into surprise as red light appeared around her. "Wait, Ster-"

All the surviving Neverwere vanished with a red flash and a thunderclap of inrushing air. Des sighed in relief and flitted over to Subaru, then dispersed her armor as she held out her left arm for Subaru to tend to. Sein poked her head up out of the road to check on her siblings.

"Thank you," the Doctor said, "but couldn't she have done that earlier?"

"It's a mana concentration spell," Mazda told him. "It recycles spent magic from the surrounding area, so it gets more powerful the longer a fight goes on. And it's not very long-lasting, and draining to cast."

"We should keep moving," Warui said. "Stern probably won't send another attack, but it wouldn't be the first time she's surprised us."


	16. Chapter 16

As they passed beyond the cleared zone, the party slowed to a crawl. The last few blocks were littered with Dalek wrecks, and many of them had set their guns to automatic. The Pflanzenpuppe had overrun most of the wrecks, but apparently hadn't thought to clear preprogrammed orders. Every few feet, they paused to let the Doctor disarm a newly-detected trap, and he didn't catch all of them in time.

Cinque sighed as another Dalek gunstick blast dissipated against her golden shield dome. "Can't we just send the Mariage in to set them off ahead of us? They are expendable, and we need to hurry."

"That's a good idea," the Doctor replied, aiming his screwdriver at a Dalek with a neat hole all the way through its torso, "But the Daleks thought of it too. They know we could throw our clockwork zombies at them all day, and seem to have figured out Ix would have to come, so they're targeting her in particular."

"Then why are they shooting at you?" Ginga asked him.

"Spite, mostly," the Doctor replied, lowering his screwdriver. "After all our history, they're pretty likely to add me to the list just in case."

+++After the next two buildings, you'll be entering an open field in front of the research facility+++ Sein sent. +++Looks like it was a precleared fire zone for defense turrets. Big pile of dead Daleks, tons of trees. The building itself is completely covered in wood; I don't think the Daleks got inside+++

"Good," the Doctor said, signaling Cinque to move on. "I really wasn't looking forwards to doing this indoors."

As he passed the last building, a Dalek armature behind him stirred. Almost completely buried beneath Pflanzenpuppe roots, its gunstick had just enough freedom of movement to sight on and fire at Ixpellia. The bolt struck her squarely in the side of the ribs.

"Exterminate! Exterminate!" the Skaro Mariages screamed. A storm of energy bolts slammed into the offending armature. "Everything that threatens her majesty will be exterminated!"

"Ixy!" Subaru yelled over the weapons fire as the enraged constructs continued pouring fire into the molten ruin of the casing. She started forwards, then froze and clenched her fists in frustration.

"I'm fine," Ixpellia shouted back at her, a little breathlessly. "Just a bit startled." She grinned. "I can't fight, but I didn't live this long just being lucky. Takes a lot more than that to kill the hardiest Belkan king."

"Do not test that," a command Mariage instructed her and the Doctor firmly. Her glowing eyeslit fixed on the Doctor. "Do not fail us again, Doctor."

"Right," he said. "I'll be more careful. I need to make a setting for wood someday."

It took fifteen minutes to cross the last hundred meters and set down in front of the research facility. Ixpellia strode forward confidently, and the branches shrouding the doorway slid aside to let her past. She led the others down the hallway. The floor and walls were covered in roots and tree trunks, forcing most of the party to watch their step. Ixpellia walked calmly, the Pflanzenpuppe clearing away from beneath her feet before they touched the ground. The hall led them through sets of heavy armored doors, many shattered from the inside. The corridor ended in a large room, banks of consoles surrounding a raised circular plinth, occupied by an enormous mass of dead trees, wrapping around each other, blue light leaking out through the gaps. Broken corpses in the tattered ruins of labcoats littered the room, tree roots wrapping around them.

Ixpellia stepped up onto the platform and the trees moved aside to reveal a metal stand, topped with four metal prongs holding a glowing blue gemstone. Ixpellia closed her eyes and put her hands against the gem. +++Got it+++ she sent. +++I'll have the IFF configured and the core ready for travel in half an hour+++

+++Why didn't you just do that in the first place?+++ Sein complained. +++If you'd been the one to switch it on we wouldn't have had to come all this way+++

+++Wilfred turned it off with her fists near the end of the wars+++ Ixpellia replied. +++The TSAB didn't want me out of headquarters while waiting for the researchers to finish reactivating it+++

* * *

Once Ixpellia was finished, Subaru and Ginga picked up the core assembly and they signaled Sanzenko for pickup. The by-now-familiar light of a teleportation spell surrounded them and deposited them in the transfer room. They cleared out of the room to let more of the Mariage return, and proceeded to the bridge with Ixpellia keeping one hand on the core as they walked.

"The _Hellfire Star_ jumped out when you reached the building. You're sure the Pflanzenpuppe ships will recognize ours?" Sanzenko asked nervously as Ixpellia entered, looking at the enormous cluster of TSAB and Neverwere derelicts forming up in the outer system as they prepared for dimensional jump.

"Yes," Ixpellia reassured her. "I've used their Dalek ship's sensor profiles of the _Fineino_ as a reference, and the TSAB and Neverwere ones were easy to set."

"So they're not going to go rogue and try to kill us all?" the Doctor asked. "Not even a little?"

"Of course not," Ixpellia said, sounding offended. "I used them for two hundred years straight and they never attacked friendly warships."

"That would be more comforting if Galea back then had any friends," Sein said drily.

"How many of their ships can still leave the system?" Colonel Mazda asked Ixpellia.

"One hundred and sixty-seven TSAB/Neverwere ships have dimensional drives working. Seven hundred thirty-two Dalek ships have warp drives; about a hundred of those and fifty others have dimensional drives," Ixpellia said, closing her eyes and focusing on the core. "Most of them have sustained crippling damage to at least some of their weapons and defenses, but remain combat-effective due to substituting Pflanzenpuppe for power distribution systems."

"Send the warp-capable ships to World 163," Mazda directed. "Schedule them to arrive in thirteen days at 1700. Bring the dimensional-drive only ships to rendezvous with us." Ixpellia nodded, and the fleets shifted into motion.

"We'll need to make repairs before we can leave the system," Sanzenko said. "At least four hours, maybe longer."

"Or shorter," the Doctor said. "Subaru?"

"Twenty-two cartridges left," she said. "What should I fix first?"

* * *

"When we attack the barrier generator, we'll be counting on you for the bulk of the fighting," Admiral Haifei told Ixpellia steadfastly ignoring the glowing eyeslits of the bodyguards. "Both in space and on the ground. Even if the Neverwere countesses let our raid force bait them into Dalek space, the Daleks will still have an advantage."

Ixpellia nodded solemnly. "The Pflanzenpuppe ships can lead the attack. I'll need you and Lotec to help guard their core while it converts the jungles. Protect it for thirty-seven hours, and it will reach a critical mass."

"They will not stand against us," one of the Mariage said. "They will burn as all of her majesty's foes must burn."

"Don't start unnecessary forest fires," Ixpellia said automatically.

"By your command."

* * *

"The dimensional barrier generator is in the northern hemisphere," Knight-commander Opel said to the assembled special division leaders, bringing up a holographic globe. "The Daleks have established an array of antiorbital guns, teleportation blockers, and dimensional stabilizers across the planet. We'll be using Jewel Seeds to break through weak points in the teleport suppression in these areas," four red circles appeared in the northern hemisphere, three on a large continent and one in the midst of an archipelago, "-and strike at the defense installations in advance of the main assault."

"You are to destroy or disable these targets," Opel highlighted dozens of defense installations, "and then proceed to this location-"a Mariage mask icon appeared on the continent directly between two of the arrival points "-and assist the regular units in defending the Pflanzenpuppe core. All of you will be assigned a set of targets, but be prepared to be diverted to assist other units. When the Pflanzenpuppe are sufficiently established, you will support their offensive against the dimensional barrier generator. Once the dimensional stabilizers around the generator are destroyed, we will withdraw and destroy the generator with an Arc-en-ciel barrage."

* * *

"Is the Shutran Stonebreaker ready for transport?" Alexia asked, tapping controls on the massive metal cylinder she was holding easily in one hand.

"Yes, we're loading it aboard the _Wisdom Of Scrya_ now," a gray-bearded librarian assured her. "Will you be operating it yourself, ma'am?"

"No, I'll be taking one of the Jewel Seeds," Alexia replied, hefting the cylinder. "Sentra will have the Stonebreaker. I've left a packet for Sanzenkyuuko in my office," Alexia summoned a picture of an alien face with no mouth. "If I don't return, make sure she reads it." She dismissed the image.

* * *

"Doctor, the fleet is prepared," Admiral Haifei said from the holoscreen. "If your TARDIS is ready, we can depart immediately."

"Unless you've changed your mind about Lost Logia," the Doctor said, watching Cinque and Ginga force their siblings to review what he'd told them, "there's not much left to do. I've got the defenses patched up and the timeline repair systems as ready as I can get them before we reach the rift."

"In that case, we'll set out now," Haifei said. "Opel has requested your companions disable a particular fortification in the northern jungles; it's difficult to approach on foot and heavily fortified against an air attack."

"Won't be a problem," the Doctor assured her. "I've dealt with bigger, and with a lot less help."

"You won't be coming," Ginga told him, crossing her arms. "It's too risky." Cinque, Otto, and Deed nodded in agreement.

"Don't worry about me," the Doctor told them cheerfully. "I'm not nearly as strong as you, but Time Lords don't die easily. I should be at least as safe as most of the soldiers."

"As safe, but far more important," Ginga replied. "If anything goes wrong at the rift, you're the only one who can operate the TARDIS properly. Without you, the entire operation will be a failure. You can't risk yourself unless absolutely necessary."

The Doctor looked at Subaru hopefully. She shook her head. "Ginga is right," Subaru said apologetically. "I know how it hurts to have to sit and watch other people go into danger, but sometimes you have to."

"I'm starting to hate being treated like a delicate princess," the Doctor complained.

"I'll stop carrying you like that," Ginga said.

"I don't mind being carried like a princess, just treated like one…"the Doctor paused. "…That comparison doesn't really work here, does it?"

"You're not nearly fierce enough to be a Belkan princess, no," Admiral Haifei said. "We were actually thinking of Sein; it's ideally suited to her Inherent Skill. We haven't been able to make anyone with Deep Diver ourselves."

* * *

As the others went to the teleport room, Subaru remained behind in the TARDIS. "Can we talk?" she asked timidly.

"Of course we can," the Doctor said. "Is something wrong?"

Subaru took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. "I'm worried about you," she said. "Ever since we came here, you've been acting differently. Before, you always wanted to talk things out; you tried with the Mariage, on Alamanzo, with Torchwood. Then you came here, and you've just been planning to destroy the Daleks."

"Do you really think there's another choice?" the Doctor snapped.

"No," Subaru said. "But I thought you would. Instead, everyone seems to think you're like a hero from the Belkan war, and you're talking like one. You're not acting like yourself."

The Doctor bit back an angry retort, and sighed. "You're right." He held up his screwdriver and projected a hologram of a rugged, grey-haired man holding another sonic screwdriver, its tip glowing red. "I'm acting like him."

"Who is he?" Subaru asked.

"Me, sort of. I've had many faces, many lives. I don't like to talk about this one. The face I wore in the Time War." The Doctor switched off the projection. "I refused at first; I tried to stay out of the war, help its victims, protect everyone caught between two of the oldest and deadliest species in the universe. It didn't help. The war spread and spread; I saved people only to see it undone as Dalek timeships and battle TARDISes wiped away their history for a momentary advantage; then the Could've Been King brought them back to fight in his armies. Finally, I tried to save a human the Daleks had shot down, and she refused because one monster was as good as another. I couldn't say she was wrong."

"So I fought in the war," he continued, "won victory after victory, destroyed entire Dalek fleets, wiped them from the Tantalus Spiral at a stroke. It didn't matter; the Daleks kept advancing, spreading into new eras. They grew stronger, and the Time Lords became more and more like them. Finally, I ended it; stole a galaxy eater, the only weapon we hadn't dared use, and destroyed both sides and sealed the war inside a timelock before the Daleks or the Time Lords could kill every other living thing throughout history to protect themselves."

"I thought I'd ended it, but some of the Daleks survived, again and again. And the hardest part is that I _could_ have ended it for good before it even began. I held the ability to destroy the Daleks at their birth in my hands, and I couldn't bring myself to use it."

"I see," Subaru said, smiling. "You are still the man I've always looked up to. Speaking of which, the Neverwere gave me an idea…"

* * *

The Pflanzenpuppe-infested Dalek derelicts shifted out of warp four light-minutes short of World 163, drawing the attention of the defenders. Hundreds of saucers, three dozen coated in glowing Gallifreyian lettering, swarmed to respond. As they closed, the rest of the Pflanzenpuppe emerged from dimensional space, the majority of the Neverwere ships forming up between the Daleks and the other derelicts. Ixpellia sent a mental command through the core assembly, and a handful of the larger Neverwere and TSAB derelicts began generating loops of glowing white light at their prows. The Dalek warships broke formation, dispersing before the Arc-en-ciels could fire.

The two fleets opened fire with their regular weapons, volleys of Dalek missiles passing each other in opposite directions as they homed in on their targets. Magic and coherent light lashed out from point defense guns, tearing them from space, while magical and hybrid kinetic volleys hurled among them. The Pflanzenpuppe allocated targets clumsily, letting some close unchallenged while half a dozen saucers focused on another. The Daleks struck with characteristic efficiency, picking at the outer edges of the Pflanzenpuppe blob despite their overlapping defensive fire. The Neverwere derelicts on the outside, lacking both the temporal energy of the original owners and the past three centuries of technological development by the TSAB, came apart easily under the Dalek volleys. On some of them, vines moved across the new rents, and disabled systems sparked back to life.

"Stand by to transit," Admiral Haifei ordered, looking at the massive tactical display in the CIC aboard the _Lufien_. The Dalek saucers planetside were beginning to power up, preparing to join the space battle, while the TSAB fleet lurked in dimensional space. She cut the general channel and spoke to the rest of High Command Plus Two. "We outmatch the current Dalek mobile forces substantially. We can hold position outside of orbit until reinforcements arrive."

"Special Division Three has successfully drawn the Neverwere into an attack," Opel said. "All three of the countesses' personal flagships are attacking World 157. The _Thunderhead_ and the _Midnight Throne_ are confirmed to have active nexuses."

"The Arc-en-ciels will fire in three minutes," Ixpellia said, clutching the Pflanzenpuppe core. In normal space, the sacrificial wall of Neverwere derelicts was eroding, and the Dalek fire began battering at the forcefields of the others. Magi Degradation warships struggled to cut through the AMFs of the Pflanzenpuppe-infested saucers, but the poorly-coordinated point defense fire allowed far too many Dalek missiles through.

Then the Arc-en-ciels completed charging. Space distorted and tore in a dozen places, each ripping nearly a score of Dalek warships from reality. The TSAB fleet jumped in on the heels of the barrage, charging their own Arc-en-ciels to keep the Daleks dispersed.

Aboard the Lost Logia amplifier ship _Wisdom Of Scrya_ , Alexis and her trio of specialists opened their Jewel Seed containment vessels and grabbed the gemstones within. As they touched the Lost Logia, they each focused on their assigned map marker. The gems began to glow, resonating with the machinery in the ship in service to their users' wills.

On the distant planet, reality pulsed. Alexia's visualization was the most precise, and her Jewel Seed simply tore at the anti-teleportation field directly. In the islands, the wielder thought of the field projectors, and electrical surges raged through them, momentarily disabling them. At another point, space twisted, straight lines curving as the Jewel Seed obeyed its instruction to bend the anti-teleportation field until it ceased to function. The final Jewel Seed created an aura of depthless black, preventing all forms of radiation from moving through the targeted area.

The special operations units began teleporting in, attempting to scatter before the Dalek ships could sweep in to bombard them, some teams struggling through blackness or finding their paths curving back on them. Alexia turned her Jewel Seed against Dalek saucers in the atmosphere, animating the energy within their reactors into blazing phoenixes. The other three forced their Jewel Seeds back into shutdown mode before they could rage out of control, letting reality settle back into its regular configuration.

* * *

+++This way+++ Ginga instructed her siblings, carrying Sein on her back as she rushed through the jungle canopy. Dalek voices screamed in fury as they blasted trees apart, and Devices chanted spells as other units fought their way through intercepting squads of Daleks.

Otto fired past Ginga, shooting through the branches of a tree to core a Dalek drone. Deed flung a Mariage core at the wreck as they passed. Ginga led them left, evading a Dalek saucer plunging from the sky as glowing birds tore into the Daleks attempting to escape from it.

+++We're approximately 120 kilometers from our target+++ Cinque sent, clinging to Subaru's back. +++About an hour?+++

+++A bit more+++ Ginga replied. +++We can't get up to full speed down here. Eighty minutes; longer if we have to fight through patrols+++

+++We will have enough time+++ Otto sent, flitting ahead to scout.


	17. Chapter 17

The cyborg siblings continued their journey through the jungles, dodging around the Daleks as they struggled with Alexia's legion of phoenixes. Other TSAB strike teams were less lucky, unable to spot the Daleks in time to avoid them, and more Daleks swarmed to sounds of battle. The Mariage cores the teams had brought along flew out, hunting the Dalek wrecks plunging from shattered warships.

In deep space, the battle continued, the arriving TSAB ships forcing the Dalek fleet back, Pflanzenpuppe ships flying into the path of incoming fire to protect the living. The _Finenio_ once again hunkered in the center of the formation, TARDIS on board. Space around it and its escorts bent, the Path Disruptor scattering incoming fire in every direction, some heading in a straight line that took it through 180-degree turns. Sanzenko nimbly danced the warship out of the way of the handful of missiles and beams that found their way through the labyrinth of twisted reality, and its own fire streaked out unhindered as the Path Disruptor opened a way for the railgun shells.

The _Wisdom Of Scrya_ sat a few dozen miles away, sheltered by its enormously powerful shields. Its handful of light anti-ship weapons were silent for a lack of targets, but the dense array of point defense guns blazed away at incoming missiles in concert with a dozen escorting battleships. In the heart of the vessel, Alexia struggled to control the Jewel Seed, forcing the phoenixes away from the TSAB ground troops. The ship's machinery whined under the strain, the crude emulation of Al-Hazard technology restraining the dimensional tremors of an active Jewel Seed.

Elsewhere in the ship, Sentra clasped her hands and faced a stand mirror, establishing a link with the Shutran Stonebreaker's control system. The mirror shifted to display the planet, spotted with red icons indicating Mariage presence. Sentra ignored them and focused in on Dalek structures and grounded saucers, attempting to tear apart the bedrock beneath them. The Dalek AMFs resisted the attack, warding it away from the more critical defense installations. Lesser targets crumpled as the Lost Logia forced its way through their defenses and sent spikes of rock up through the foundations.

Otto signaled the group to a halt near a clearing, looking around the upper trunk of a massive tree. +++Dalek patrol ahead+++ Otto sent. +++Ten standard drones, three Magi Degredations+++

+++Can we route around them?+++ Ginga asked

+++Most likely not+++ Otto replied. +++The patrol routes are overlapping more frequently now. Diverting will probably lead us to encounter another patrol+++

+++Let's just break through+++ Subaru suggested. +++If we wait more Daleks might find us. We can be gone before reinforcements arrive+++

+++Subaru is right+++ the Doctor sent from the TARDIS. +++The Jewel Seed won't remain controllable much longer. Once it does the Dalek warships can give them air support. They'll sometimes risk bombarding their own ships to hit their enemies+++

Ginga nodded and set Sein down on the Wing Road surface, then led the rest forwards in a charge. The Daleks detected their approach and spun to face them, the Degredations beginning to cast. Cinque launched a barrage of knives at the nearest Magi Degredation, blades exploding against its barrier. "Casing impaired!" the Magi Degredation shrieked, its armor cracking. The Device attachments shattered, and it plunged to the ground. Otto hit another with the full force of Ray Storm, smashing through its barrier and the armor beneath.

Unfortunately, the last Magi Degredation finished its spell. "Extermination Bolts," it grated, twenty-four blue needles popping into existence and streaming at Ginga. She threw up a shield to block it, which cracked under the impact, just as the regular drones opened fire. Five gunstick shots struck her in the torso, breaking through her barrier jacket. Ginga staggered, skin burning away from her chest.

Subaru roared in fury, accelerating towards the Magi Degredation. It attempted to dodge aside, attempting to interpose a standard drone. Subaru slipped around it, punching through the drone's shield with Revolver Knuckle as she passed. The Magi Degredation raised a protective barrier and Subaru hammered against it.

The others turned to the standard Daleks. Deed dove towards the forest floor, then flew up at the Daleks from below, herding them into Otto's line of fire. Deed cut one apart and another two burned beneath Otto's bombardment. Cinque ran along the Wing Road to Ginga, throwing a shield dome over her fallen sibling and flinging knives at the Daleks left unengaged by the twins, focusing at the weak points in the Dalek forcefields over their eyestalks. Two of the Daleks went berserk when the exploding knives blinded them, blasting at random into the treeline.

The Magi Degradation pulsed its shield, blasting Subaru back. Subaru snarled and charged it again, her eyes glowing. She drove through an attempted bind and smashed against the shield again. Subaru's onslaught finally broke through, and as her fist struck metal the Magi Degredation blasted apart. Subaru smashed the creature inside into a pulp and whirled towards one of the drones.

Ginga staggered to her feet, checking her wound. Her flesh had burned away in a large section around her sternum, revealing the metal below. Fortunately, it had stood up to the blasts well enough to protect her internal organs, and her limbs still seemed to move properly. She turned towards the fighting, raising a new shield and closing on one of the Daleks Cinque had blinded. One of its stray shots burst against her shield, another two scattering randomly into the underbrush. Ginga drove a magically-enhanced punch through the Dalek's forcefield, shattering the gunstick. Another blow broke the torso open and smashed into the creature's eye.

The remaining Daleks scattered, concentrating their fire on Deed. She batted their shots away with her blades, and the siblings each picked a target and ran them down. When the last Dalek exploded under Vibration Shatter, Subaru rushed over to Ginga and began inspecting her injury anxiously.

"I'm okay," Ginga told her, wincing. "My barrier jacket stopped most of it."

Subaru completed her inspection and relaxed slightly, activating a simple first-aid spell. "There isn't any bleeding," she said, "and I don't see any exposed wiring. But your ribcage is damaged; it might not take another hit. And you'll need to get your skin buns treated properly."

+++Please don't worry her like that+++ Cinque sent to Ginga on a private channel. +++Really don't. She gets… really upset when you're hurt+++

"I'll be careful," Ginga assured them both. "The burns will keep for a few hours." She concentrated and sent mana into her barrier jacket, restoring the damaged section. "Come on, we're almost to the ridgeline."

"But-" Subaru began.

"I'll get to a medical bay as soon as possible," Ginga promised. "But we're stuck here until the suppressors fall, and I'll be safer with you than on my own."

* * *

"My turn!" Sein said gleefully as they touched down. She let go of Ginga and stepped over to Subaru. "You first." She picked up Subaru beneath the shoulders and the pair of them sank into the ground. +++Any idea where we should go?+++ Sein asked the Doctor as she swam through the earth, diving below the root systems of the trees.

+++Look for a big room with catwalks a ways up to drop them off in+++ he replied. +++Daleks don't need to worry about falling, so they'll leave empty spaces under bridges between rooms rather than bothering with floors+++

Sein sent an acknowledgement and swam forward, rising up and carefully poking her finger through a Dalekanium floor. The first room was full of regular Daleks sitting inactive, and Sein moved inwards, passing beneath a series of hallways and dull rooms swept by Dalek patrols and spider Degredations. Finally, they reached a cavernous open space, and Sein emerged to deposit Subaru, then dove back to bring her other siblings forwards.

+++How bad is the AMF?+++ Ginga asked as Sein brought Cinque forwards.

+++Pretty heavy+++ Subaru replied. +++A little worse than that base raid simulation. But I don't think it's enough to cancel out Barrier Break+++

+++Heavy enough they don't seem to have any Magi or Knights, though+++ Sein sent as she set Cinque down next to Subaru.

Shortly afterwards, Sein deposited the last of her siblings with Subaru and slipped back underground, scouting ahead. Ginga called up the imagery from their briefing, pointing at the four heavy anti-orbital guns arrayed around the center of the base. "We'll take these out first while Sein looks for our other targets. We should be roughly here-"a light appeared about halfway between the outer edge and one of the heavy guns "-so we need to go that direction. Subaru?"

Subaru turned to the wall Ginga indicated and punched the wall. A large chunk of the wall blew apart, revealing an array of immobile conveyor belts and industrial machinery snaking through a small chamber. As they hurried through the chamber, Subaru shattered the equipment they passed, then smashed through the next wall into a corridor. Cinque glanced towards the openings where the conveyors entered the room, then grimaced and shook her head slightly. +++We've found and disabled a Dalek production facility+++ she sent. +++It was inactive+++

+++Thank God for that+++ the Doctor sent, choosing not to press Cinque about the incubators. +++They must be out of raw materials for the moment. I'll tell the other groups to keep an eye out for more of them+++

+++I think I've found the teleport suppressor+++ Sein interjected. +++Big piece of machinery, black Dalek keeping an eye on it+++ She sent a picture to the rest.

Ginga mentally compared it to the images from the briefing, then frowned. +++It looks a bit like what we were told to expect, but not quite. Doctor?+++

+++Interesting+++ he replied. +++I can't say for sure without scanning it, but it seems like it's one of their anti-TSAB teleport suppressors crossed with a transmat diverter+++

+++What does that mean?+++ Subaru asked him.

+++It's meant to defend against magical teleportation, and send mass-based teleportation wherever they want. Which means they're not just fortifying it against the TSAB+++

+++Perhaps they're worried about the Time Lords breaking out through the rift+++ Ginga suggested, slowing to let the others head around a corner ahead of her. +++If so, we might be able to help them evacuate-+++

+++There isn't much chance of that+++ the Doctor cut her off. +++Judging by their ships, the rift connects to one of the last segments of the war. No more than a couple years before the end. We were about out of options; only a few thousand Battle TARDISes left, just five forbidden weapons still in the Omega Vaults. They'd put me in command of the Fifth Battle Fleet, and then I knew we were _really_ in trouble. Besides, we'd stopped using transmits long before I was born. More likely they're worried about the Neverwere; most of their warships from inside the timelock would have them+++

Subaru frowned at that as she punched through another wall in the direction of the defense gun, then found herself distracted by the room's four occupants.

"Alert! Alert! Intr-"the drone's shriek was interrupted by Subaru's Revolver Knuckle slamming into its eyestalk. The three glider Degredations it supervised opened fire, the torsos in their transparent casings twitching in surprise. Otto speared each of them with energy bolts, their forcefields crumbling much more easily than those of the standard drones. Subaru rushed past the piles of spare parts the Daleks had been guarding and smashed through the next wall, breaking into the gun chamber, containing an array of control stations around a glowing power core.

Half a dozen bronze-colored drones opened fire immediately, met by Cinque's dome and Subaru's shield. Four red Daleks detached their manipulator arms from interface control panels and turned to engage them as Subaru and Deed rushed the drones. "Exterminate!" the red Daleks roared, firing at Otto. Otto slipped aside, taking only a glancing hit on the shoulder, and returned fire at the closest Dalek. Deed forced one of her blades through the eyestalk of the nearest drone, parrying a blast from another drone with her second blade. Subaru drove her right first through the forcefield of the drone targeting Deed.

Cinque flung a quartet of knives at one of the red Daleks, blasting through its shields as Ginga entered the room. The Daleks pulled back in an effort to avoid the close-quarters fighters among the siblings, continuing to try and target Otto. Cinque's dome intercepted some of the incoming fire, allowing Otto to evade the rest, and Ginga joined her sisters in smashing apart the drones as Cinque and Otto bombarded the red Dalek gunners. One of them fled the room as the others burned, leaving the gun defenseless. Cinque ran to the center of the room and tapped the control systems, then followed Subaru to another wall. Deed and Ginga flung their last Mariage cores at the wrecks as they departed.

+++They'll have alerted the base over the Pathweb+++ the Doctor warned. +++More Daleks will be coming to hunt you down+++

+++Then we'll distract them+++ Cinque replied. +++Subaru, give Otto a path through the ceiling. The rest of us will lure the Daleks away and Otto will take the opportunity to destroy the guns. Sein, help Otto+++

* * *

Cinque detonated a set of knives, cutting away a catwalk beneath a quartet of Dalek drones. "Elevate!" they shrieked, lifting away from the falling metal as the cyborgs ran through a doorway back towards the outer sections of the base. Subaru smashed through a spider Degredation coming in the other direction, then led the rest towards an intersection to take a left turn in the direction of an air defense battery. The whole building shook as Cinque detonated the first defense gun, breaching its power core.

Elsewhere, Otto slipped through a corridor, hovering against the ceiling as a mob of Daleks rushed down it, heading to engage the Skaro Mariage activating at the other gun. "Exterminate the abominations! Exterminate! Ex-ter-min-ate!" they howled. Their secondary sensors failed to penetrate Otto's Stealth Jacket, and in their haste to join in battle they didn't bother to sweep the area with their eyestalks, letting Otto continue on towards the next antiorbital gun. Only two Daleks remained at the controls, and Sein rose up from the floor to tear one apart from inside as Otto hammered the other. Otto sliced apart the controls and cabling with a blaze of green light and hurried onwards.

The Daleks pursuing the others hesitated, giving Ginga an opening to release a shockwave, sending them sliding away. Cinque volleyed knives at the reeling Daleks, scoring a couple of eyestalk hits. The damaged Daleks shrieked and fired randomly, blowing a drone apart with a stray shot. The others pulled back uncertainly.

"Gather to the teleport defense! Protect Dalek Sec!" a golden Dalek in the rear commanded.

"We obey!" the other Daleks chorused, turning back.

+++Dalek Sec?+++ Subaru sent. +++What's that?+++

+++One of the Cult Of Skaro+++ the Doctor replied. +++He must be the black Dalek overseeing the teleport suppressor. _Don't_ try to fight him; there's no telling what modifications he's made to his chassis+++

+++Leave the suppressor intact if necessary+++ Knight-Commander Opel sent, joining the conversation. +++Disable the guns and we can destroy the base from orbit+++

+++Sein and I can attempt to destroy it and make our escape+++ Cinque replied. +++Everyone else can destroy some of the air defense guns on their way out; provide a distraction+++

Otto and Sein swept through the remaining orbital guns with little resistance, burning through a handful of Degredations left behind as the original Daleks rallied towards the suppressor. Sein swam upwards through the walls and pulled Otto through the ceiling, then turned to collect Cinque. Otto flew outwards in the direction of the others, trusting in the Stealth Jacket to fool the defense guns.


	18. Chapter 18

"The Doctor's companions are escaping!" a golden Dalek informed Dalek Sec. "You are no longer in danger! Why do you defy the primary order!?"

"Their escape is a diversion." Dalek Sec grated. "The Doctor has not been identified. His weakness would not allow him to remain behind. He will come here. Remain and defend. Capture the Doctor alive. Obey!"

A tense silence descended. "We obey," the golden Dalek finally acquiesced.

+++See?+++ Cinque sent, as Sein lifted her up so Cinque's hand emerged from the floor next to the suppressor to tap part of the support structure.

+++Oh, I'm _predictable_ now+++ the Doctor complained. +++I hate it when that happens, all the baiting into traps+++

+++Why do they want to capture you alive?+++ Ginga asked. +++They certainly weren't trying with us+++

+++I don't know, but it can't be good+++ the Doctor replied. +++They only do that when they have a use for someone. But they know you're my companions, so it can't just be needing a living time traveler. So what could they want?+++

+++Would you like me to make a list of possibilities?+++ Deed asked.

+++Would this list be hypothetical or a list of reasons why you've kidnapped people before?+++

+++The latter+++ Deed informed him.

+++I'll pass+++ the Doctor replied. +++The admirals want me to tell you to raid a few other outposts. Are you up for it?+++

+++Depends+++ Ginga sent, wincing +++If they're as large as this one and prepared for Sein we probably won't manage it. Definitely not on schedule+++

+++They're pretty small+++ the Doctor replied. +++Secondary targets for other teams that had trouble. But if you're not healthy enough-+++

+++No, I'll be all right+++ Ginga interrupted. +++I'm sure that the other teams are having trouble too+++

+++Most of them won't have all that many Combat Cyborgs+++ Cinque added, tapping another point on the teleport suppressor. +++The AMFs will be hampering them substantially+++ Sein dived, swimming towards the outside of the base with her sister.

+++You're right+++ the Doctor admitted. +++Here's the coordinates+++

Cinque scanned the information as she hurled through the ground. +++A few antiorbital gun sites and a secondary teleport suppressor outpost. It shouldn't be difficult+++

+++We can engage and destroy them on our way to the rally point+++ Otto sent.

The base shuttered slightly as Cinque detonated the teleport suppressor. Ginga checked the local energy signatures. +++The suppression field is disabled. Let's regroup and continue+++

* * *

The minor outposts proved as lightly defended as expected, only about a dozen Daleks and a couple Knight Degradations defending a boxy metal shack at each. Sein slipped in ahead of the others and disabled the Knight Degradations before the others struck. Subaru led the assault, shedding energy bolts off her shield spells, Deed sticking close behind her. Ginga skated in behind them, covering Otto and Cinque as they exchanged fire with the Daleks. Once they finished battering through the defenders, Cinque demolished the building in a shower of knives.

After destroying the fifth target, Subaru led her siblings south towards the primary arrival point, supporting Ginga as they skated through the canopy. Alexia's phoenixes were beginning to disperse, and the Dalek ships on the planet were taking to the sky again. Occasionally, the ground shook as Dalek gunners found targets or simply decided to burn away the foliage to deprive them of cover.

+++We're getting close to the rendezvous+++ Subaru sent. +++How long until we can teleport Ginga to medbay?+++

+++A few more minutes+++ the Doctor told her. +++Some of the teams ran into trouble; not all the suppressors are down yet+++

Otto signaled them to a stop as yet another Dalek patrol swept by. Subaru grimaced, glancing up through the gaps in the leaves at a Dalek saucer hurling overhead. The ship's hull bore scorch marks from an attack by phoenixes, with swarms of flying drones protecting the damaged sections. +++We're running into a lot of Daleks here too+++ Subaru sent.

+++We're almost there+++ the Doctor assured her +++Just hold on a little longer+++

"More Daleks incoming," Deed warned, raising her blades. Behind them, a swarm of Daleks rose into the treeline. Three Knight Degradations and a pair of Magi Degradations led the force towards them, shields rising in front of them. One of the Magi Degredations was painted in blue-white, the other a solid, darker blue.

"Knuckle Bunker!" Ginga yelled, unleashing a shockwave at the advancing Degradations. She and Subaru skated down into the undergrowth, the rest following close behind. The Daleks opened fire, a storm of energy bolts tearing the treeline apart. One caught Otto in the back, searing through the Stealth Jacket. Deed shifted over, melting a volley of needles from a Knight Degradation targeting her twin.

"Annihilation Buster" the blue-white Magi Degradation said, unleashing a magical beam at Cinque. It smashed directly through Cinque's barrier and struck her dead on. Cinque let the impact shove her off the path, falling a dozen feet to slam against a tree trunk. +++Scatter+++ she instructed the others, forcing herself to her feet with a wince.

Subaru turned towards the pursuing Daleks and dashed underneath them a few feet off the ground as the others reached the ground and threaded their way through the trees. The Knight Degradations took the bait, diving towards Subaru to engage her in close quarters with their levitating blades as the rest of the Dalek patrols split up to pursue the others. Subaru raised her Revolver Knuckle, preparing to smash their weapons apart. "Steel prison" one of the Degradations grated. Metal chains materialized from the ground, wrapping around Subaru's arms.

Subaru dissipated the Wing Road beneath her, letting the chains go slack as she fell. She pulled her arms together, touching her chains with the opposite palms and blowing them apart. The Knight Degradations reached her just as she brought her arms back up into a guard stance. "Protection" Mach Calibur said, raising a barrier to intercept the Dalek blades. The Knight Degradations lurched back, spreading out to encircle her as a quartet of standard Daleks dropped out of the formation around the saucer overhead.

Elsewhere, Ginga forced her way through a stand of shrubs. Energy bolts slammed into the greenery behind her, the Daleks keeping their distance and simply attempting to burn through Ginga's cover. Cinque picked a clearer path, flinging knives into the bases of trees and detonating them behind her to slow the Dalek pursuit. Sein simply disappeared into the ground the moment she reached it, leaving frustrated Daleks behind. Otto and Deed stuck together, flying a half-foot above the ground to avoid being caught in the undergrowth. Otto blasted at the Magi Degradations while Deed deflected energy bolts. The tip of the beams lashing at the dark blue Degradation froze as they reached the golden shield disk, leaving cylinders of brilliant green light floating in midair. White blazed around them, eating at the beams and air alike. A series of magical circles formed beneath the Degradation, charging a spell even as it maintained a shield.

Subaru charged towards the Knight Degradation in front of her, gathering power in her gauntlet. Her target lurched backwards, the other two moving to strike at Subaru from behind. She whirled to punch at one of them, and it reversed course instantly. Subaru blew apart one of its blades, then felt a blade slide along her barrier jacket as the third Degradation struck. Subaru lashed out with her left hand before it could retreat. Her glove sparked and burned against the technological forcefield, failing to penetrate. The Degradation recoiled, lurching well back out of range. Subaru stepped towards it, then jumped back as a volley of gunstick bolts struck the ground ahead of her.

+++Sein, help me please+++ Subaru sent worriedly, raising a shield to intercept another volley from the drones overhead. The Knight Degradations began circling back inwards, one of them replacing its lost blade.

+++Want me to get you out of there?+++ Sein asked, swimming over towards her.

+++Then they'll just chase Ginga+++ Subaru replied. She rushed towards one of the Knight Degredations, sending it scurrying back, then turned to face the others before they could strike. +++I need a little time to cast a spell+++

+++Gotcha+++ Sein replied, slipping closer to the surface. +++I'll take the one to the south+++

The saucer above suddenly opened fire, particle beams slashing through the forest ahead of Ginga. She turned right, heading away from her siblings. +++They're bombarding us. We're all going to need a teleport out+++

+++Not much longer+++ the Doctor sent +++Stay close to the drones; they usually won't risk hitting their own+++

+++Usually. Very comforting+++ Sein sent as she lunged out of the ground. Her disruption glove struck the Knight Degradation's shield and shorted it out in a burst of sparks. She reached through the chassis and ripped out the power core, then dove down before the drones overhead could blast her.

Subaru grinned and turned to put her back to the incapacitated Degradation. She pressed her palms together, circles appearing above and below her as she ejected a pair of cartridges. "Call the path not taken," she chanted.

"Possibility Fusion," Mach Calibur said. Orange light poured out from the Device and gathered around Subaru. Memories rushed through her mind, sniffling in a burning building, arms wrapping around her, a blaze of pink light and a flight through the air. Then years of practicing, working on converting a Mid-childan spell into the Belkan system. She raised her right fist, another cartridge tumbling away. "Divine Buster!" A column of blue light burst from her fist and slammed into the Knight Degradations, burning through their shields and the armor beneath. Subaru headed left, curving back towards the saucer.

+++I was going to ask if the Doctor could show us other timelines+++ Sein commented +++But now I'm afraid to+++

Overhead, the dark blue Magi Degradation finished its spell, roaring "Sound Disruption!" A high-pitched whine emerged from it, and the cyborgs staggered, their muscles spasming wildly. Mach Calibur and Blitz Calibur shrieked as if in pain, Ginga and Subaru's barrier jackets flickering. The Dalek drones swept down, taking careful aim with their gunsticks. Just as they opened fire, their targets vanished from in front of them.

Ginga stood up unsteadily in the teleport room of the _Finenio_. "Everyone all right?" she asked.

"We're all here," Cinque told her as infantry and Mariage moved into the room. "Otto, take her to medbay; everyone else, we're going back down."

* * *

"You have fourth-degree burns over ten percent of your body," the medic informed Ginga, "with third-degree burns over most of the rest of your chest. Your sister's spell has prevented initial infections, but necrosis is setting in around the injury." She triggered a healing spell from the medical bed. "It will take at least eight hours to cleanse and stabilize the injury; if you leave the medbay before then you will be at considerable risk of infection, likely resulting in death."

Her voice shifted to a lecturing tone. "Your augmentations allow you to survive injuries that would be instantly fatal to ordinary humans, but you are not a robot. Your skin is not merely cosmetic; your organs are not the only part of your body you need to protect. Don't disregard an injury just because your mechanical parts are still functional."

"It sounds like you rehearsed that," the Doctor noted from his display screen.

The medic sighed as she turned to examine Otto. "They're _all_ like this. I've had to physically drag the captain in here, when she was in bad enough shape I could actually do that. She actually bothered to get first aid, which puts her ahead of half the Combat Cyborgs I've treated. Ix once told me- never mind."

"I knew it was pretty bad, but I didn't want to worry my little sister," Ginga admitted. "So it'll be eight hours before I'm healed?"

"No," the medic replied. "That's just how long it will take to ensure your condition won't dramatically worsen. It'll be several more hours before I'll be willing to discharge you. Beyond that, staying will accelerate your recovery, but isn't strictly necessary." She grimaced as she finished examining Otto's wounds. "You, however, have some second-degree burns but can return to duty if needed."

Ginga sighed and settled back, wincing. "It seems you're not the only person who needs to sit this one out," she told the Doctor.

"You get used to it eventually," the Doctor told her.

"Really?" Ginga asked him.

"So people kept telling me."

* * *

As the fleet made orbit, the TSAB ground forces teleported down beneath them, landing on a granite outcropping thrusting up through the treeline. The Church Knights who hadn't been involved in the initial assault arrived first, coming to the support of the strike teams on the ground that had reached the rendezvous point. Waves of Mariage followed the knights, moving out to secure a landing site for the living. Overhead, the surviving saucers fell back towards the dimensional barrier generator, regrouping under the cover of its orbital defense batteries. The Pflanzenpuppe-infested ships that survived from the initial engagement formed up between the TSAB fleet and the Daleks. The Daleks below began retreating as well, but about half the Knight Degradations charged towards the Skaro Mariage, howling "Unclean Abominations! Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!" over the snarled orders of the other Daleks to break off.

The berserk Knight Degradations proved easy prey for the TSAB elite, forgetting to keep under cover in their single-minded desire to destroy their undead kin. Converging bombardment spells hammered through AMFs and forcefields to tear them from the sky, and Subaru joined the Church Knights and other Combat Cyborgs in handling the ones that broke through.

When the last Degradation in the sky fell to a heavyset man wielding a pair of energy blades, Subaru doubled back to the center and dropped to the ground next to Des. "That part wasn't so bad," she said. Nearby, the first of the regular infantry began arriving, carrying squad heavy weapons to emplace on the hilltop.

"Enjoy it while it lasts," Des said, sitting down and examining rents in her Barrier Jacket. "With us stuck in one place they'll be able to really bring their numbers to bear."

"You're going to be in reserve to counter major attacks," Warui noted, padding towards the edge of the hill. "It's going to be a long night." She put her forepaws at the edge of a sheer drop and laid down. "Blessing Of The Cradle." A dome of green light rose above the hill. More infantry teleported down, about half of them moving to the dome and placing their right hands against its base, sending power through their Armed Devices to supplement it. The rest passed through the dome, descending into the forest below, rifles at the ready.

"I've never been in a fight like this before," Cinque admitted as colonel Mazda came over to join them. The colonel's Barrier Jacket was only slightly scuffed, but her staff's ejector was locked open over an empty magazine. "Nothing lasting longer than a few hours. How do these sorts of things work?"

"The first rule of big fights is that you listen to your superiors and don't go haring off on your own," the colonel said piously. She held a solemn expression for about five seconds then broke into a grin. "Which is both true and not very satisfying. Captain, if you would?"

"Of course," Des said, settling down with her naginata over one shoulder as infantry and Mariage streamed past. "For one thing, it's not going to be a single fight stretched out for days, not really. I mean, there's always going to be some shooting, Daleks keeping us on our toes, but they can't just throw a solid wall of Daleks at us forever. We get tired, they have their charge run down and their guns stop punching through D-rank Barrier Jackets. It's a marathon, not a sprint. They're going to try to tire us out without losing too many of their own, then hit us hard when we're exhausted. So the infantry are going to be on eight-hour shifts, and the front line will rotate about every thirty minutes.

"We, along with the Aerial Corps, are going to stay on standby for our shifts, only going out to fight when the Daleks are pressing hard. Since you're Combat Cyborgs, you're not going to be on a shift exactly; we'll try to give you time to rest a bit between sorties but no big block to sleep in. Rest of us are scheduled to switch off in two hours." Sharp cracking noises started echoing from the jungle to the east. Des glanced over. "It's starting."

"Rearm and mend barriers," Mazda told them, pointing towards a set of new arrivals unloading pallets of crates. "The knights will handle this one."

Subaru stood up and walked over with Mazda and Des, while her sisters settled down. The supply team handed each of them thirty cartridges without a second glance.

"I don't need this many," Subaru said. The woman who'd given her the cartridges glanced up from the crate and frowned at her, then blinked yellow eyes and bowed.

"Of course, Original. Standard is four full loads at a time," she said. Subaru nodded awkwardly and passed back a handful of cartridges.

"Hello," Ixpellia said, walking past between her omnipresent bodyguards, with more Mariage carrying the Pflanzenpuppe core.

"Hi Ixy," Subaru replied cheerfully. "Will you be all right?"

Ixpellia smiled back at her. "This isn't my first or hundredth siege." A core formed in front of her and leapt away towards the east, where the cracking of railgun rounds continued unabated. "Don't do anything unusually reckless."


	19. Chapter 19

"Is this how your people fought the Daleks?" Ginga asked the Doctor, watching the TSAB forces spread out through the jungle. They'd decided to secure a roughly twenty-mile radius around the hill, setting up firing positions along gaps in the treeline and on the inward slopes of hills. Soldiers invoked earth-moving spells to raise protective berms in minutes, then set about uprooting trees to clear lines of fire without simply blowing them to splinters, while more powerful mages set up barriers around gun nests for tripod-mounted hybrid railguns. Mariage swept out ahead of the living, engaging small squads of Daleks sent to harass the TSAB troops before they could dig in. The regular Mariage had difficulty getting into blade range of the Daleks, serving primarily to herd them into the air for command variants to target. Skaro Mariage swept among the treetops to keep the Daleks from overflying the front lines, engaging Glider Degradations in a storm of energy bolts.

"Not usually," the Doctor replied, looking at his own array of screens. "We're the Time Lords, not the Trench Lords, after all. There's still worlds where five steps will take you through a thousand years."

Ginga nodded and focused on her siblings. Otto had returned to the surface and was being fussed over by Deed, while Cinque was talking with a tiger familiar who'd been assigned to carry her into the fight. Des and Subaru were sitting near the inner dome covering Ixpellia and the Pflanzenpuppe core, discussing their admirers among the Saint Church and Combat Cyborg contingents respectively.

"Want to talk to Subaru?' the Doctor asked Ginga kindly.

Ginga shook her head firmly, then winced as the motion tugged at her burns. "She can take care of herself; I'd just be distracting her. I just don't want to spend the whole time wondering what's happening down there."

The Doctor nodded. "In that case, you can help me try and figure out what the Daleks are up to."

"They're trying to get to Ixpellia before she can animate too much of the forest, of course," Ginga said, confused.

"And does it look like they're going to succeed?" the Doctor asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I… don't know," Ginga said uncertainly. "I'm not sure how well lower-ranking mages do against them."

"Pretty well, compared to most," the Doctor told her, projecting an image of one of the gun nests. Seven Daleks had broken through the Mariage and begun firing on it, their blasts sparking against the barrier or carving through several feet of earth. The heavy gun returned fire, hypersonic bolts chewing through forcefields and armor alike. The infantry sheltering nearby broke into groups of three, each targeting a single Dalek and saturating its forcefield with sustained bursts. "The Daleks might get through, but not easily. And there's still the Jewel Seeds."

"So you think the attack is a distraction," Ginga said, narrowing her eyes. "And they're planning to use Lost Logia of their own, maybe?"

"Maybe," the Doctor said. "I'll ask Alexia if they might have captured any. But they're not fond of counting on Degradations for anything more than cannon fodder. Not without reason, either. They're hardly what you'd call reliable."

* * *

Half an hour in, Colonel Mazda sent the siblings, Sunbeam the tiger and Des off on their first sortie, heading to the west against a tight column of Spider Degradations. Cinque rode on Sunbeam through the air alongside Subaru and Des at the front. Below them, the ground forces were deepening the trenches, setting up fallback positions and installing shelters for reserve units.

Otto rose above the rest of the group as the outer line of trenches came into view, infantry sheltering behind the earthworks from sheets of energy bolts. Mariage formed up among the infantry, blades at the ready. The Spider Degradations were keeping them pinned down while systematically burning their way through the earthworks, staggering shots from their quartet of heavy energy guns. Corpses littered the ground within the trenches, Mariage cores diving in among them. Cinque signaled the group to dive towards the thickest concentration of Spider Degradations and manifested knives around her.

"Divine Shooter Assault," Protecting Heart said, sending a shower of pink orbs out ahead of Des to blow apart two of the leading Degradations. Otto and Cinque, unaffected by the Dalek AMFs, spread their fire more widely, crippling half a dozen Degradations apiece as their sisters drove in through scattered Dalek counterfire. Des reached the ground first, driving Protecting Heart's blade through the eyestalk of one of the Degradations Otto had hit and spinning to slice through another. Subaru landed nearby, skimming past three Degredations and shattering them. Deed diverted slightly, landing on the edge of the area the bombardment had cleared.

Sunbeam hit the ground with a roar, spikes of red light rising out of the ground to impale two nearby Degradations. The surviving Degradations refocused on the new arrivals, the ones without clear lines of fire clambering over felled trees and undergrowth while keeping up their bombardment of the trenchline. Cinque and Sunbeam layered domed shields over themselves and Otto, while Subaru, Des, and Deed rushed forwards fast enough to avoid most of the incoming fire, deflecting the rest with shields and energy blades.

Directly behind them, the TSAB infantry returned to their firing steps, shooting at the Spider Degradations to the sides of the strike force. While sheltering below the lip, they'd rearranged their shattered fire teams, and while their timing wasn't as smooth as usual, most of the teams managed to concentrate their fire enough to overwhelm the shields. A mage near a shattered gun position started launching narrow energy beams from his staff, burning through the shields on single Degradations.

* * *

Ginga pulled her attention away from Subaru slashing through the Dalek ranks to focus on the wider battle. The Spider Degradations had torn up the earthworks, but seemed to have been unwilling to advance into the trenches themselves. "They've only sent one kind of Degradation," she noted to the Doctor and Alexia. "If they'd sent flyers they could have swept in overhead once the Spiders had suppressed the heavy guns. And they'd be harder for my siblings to get in close with."

"That is odd," the Doctor said. "Very odd indeed. They haven't even sent any of the regular kind along to supervise. They usually mix them rather thoroughly. Have they changed that this side of the rift?"

"Um," Alexia's gaze unfocused. "After-action reports don't necessarily specify exact deployments, but it looks like about seven percent of engagements involved deploying Degradations on their own."

"Really? That seems high," the Doctor said. "Wait, subtract out any cases involving only magic-using Degradations; those might have to do with interference. How often then?"

"Two percent," Alexia said. "According to the reports; I could analyze video-"

"No, that's quite all right," the Doctor assured her. "So they're definitely up to something."

Ginga looked back at her screen displaying the ground battle, watching Mariage swarming out of the trenches to close with the Daleks while they were distracted. Des was leading Subaru and Deed back to rejoin Cinque, slashing through the Degradations they'd left intact on their way out. "They're keeping the TSAB from moving out further and expending cartridges," she said, "but aren't inflicting as much damage as they could be in the process. It's as if they're more interested in keeping us fighting than in winning."

"Buying time," the Doctor said, "But time should be on our side. What do they know that we don't? Alexia, found anything?"

"No," Alexia replied. "None of the Lost Logia they're known to still possess would be able to destroy the fleet, and all are difficult to direct against specific targets. I'm sorting through ones listed as destroyed or in burn systems now, in case the Daleks were able to retrieve them."

"What about where they're fighting the Neverwere?" Ginga asked. "Until Ix retrieved the core they wouldn't have known which planet we were targeting, so they might have prepared for an attack on any of them."

The Doctor looked at Alexia, who turned her head and opened another holographic window to consult scouting reports. "The Neverwere countesses forced a physical landing and their troops are advancing overland. The _Midnight Throne_ is leading the fleet above to protect them from bombardment. The _Hellfire Star_ and _Thunderhead_ are grounded."

"And the Daleks?" the Doctor prompted.

"It's hard to get detailed observations from here," Alexia said hesitantly, "but they seem to be fighting a delaying action. Most of their non-magical forces are falling back towards the barrier generator, while the rest are launching periodic attacks on the edge of the formation."

"Stalling here, stalling there," the Doctor said. "They need time, but they're not trying to evacuate, so they're not planning to destroy the planet and us with it. They can't make more Daleks here faster than Ixpellia can convert the biosphere, so that can't be it. The TARDIS isn't picking up any energy spikes, so they're not charging a big gun. Buying time for reinforcements through the rift? No, they'd regroup their fleet there instead of sacrificing it." The Doctor frowned. "We're missing something. Something so simple we can't see it."

"Let's look over the plan from the beginning," Ginga suggested. "Work from what the Daleks would know we'd do."

* * *

While Ginga and the Doctor worked, the battle continued below. The standard Daleks continued holding back, occasionally swooping barely into range to launch harassing fire on the TSAB lines, while periodically sending waves of Degradations in. The elites sortied to drive them back, aerial mages blasting apart swarms of gliders that swooped down on the reserve trenches while the others engaged Spider Degradations on the ground or dueled Knights and Magi. Combat Cyborgs with gun-linked Inherent Skills were advanced to replace destroyed gun nests in the heat of battle, supported by barrier specialist elites.

Streams of wounded were transferred back aboard the orbiting ships, while reserve troops moved up to replace them on the line. As the day wore on, the Daleks intensified their attacks, matched by sorties from the hilltop reserves and the growing might of the Galean weapons under their king's command. With Ixpellia producing cores at maximum speed, the fallen of both sides rejoined the fray in short order, except where Daleks had the opportunity to melt them into slag. Within the trenches, in a spreading ring from the hilltop, the plants that the TSAB forces had uprooted and cut down stirred into motion, shifting roots and branches into blades and carving into the still-living vegetation, until it too rose in service of the Flame King.

While Otto and Deed joined a squadron of aerial mages to drive off Glider Degradations bombarding the reserve trenchlines, Subaru sat down near the growing mass of plant matter gathering around Ixpellia, reinforcing the energy dome. "Are you doing all right in there, Ixy?" she asked.

"I'm fine," Ixpellia replied, settling back in her throne of dead tree roots. "The Pflanzenpuppe mostly operate autonomously, and it isn't hard to get them to distinguish between Daleks and humans. What about Ginga?"

"She's still recovering," Subaru said. "Really, she shouldn't be so reckless when she's-" Subaru paused as Ixpellia started giggling furiously. "What?"

"Oh, nothing important," Ixpellia said, "Just remembering something. I'm glad she'll be all right. And," she continued solemnly, "I'm glad I got to see you again, even like this."

"Ah, I'm sorry I don't remember you," Subaru apologized.

"No, that's not what I meant," Ixpellia said. "I'm talking about the war. I don't like being the queen of the dead, I don't like my friends seeing me being a weapon, and… and I'm afraid. If we don't win here, I might die. That's not something I've thought about before."

"Huh?" Subaru blinked. "What about during the Belkan wars?"

"No, I was afraid I'd lose, but…" Ixpellia sighed. "I'm not sure how much of this is safe for me to tell you out of order." She paused thoughtfully. "I suppose it won't hurt anything if I tell you about my powers. I was made into a weapon system for Galea early in the wars. One to make an army rather than a single warship or a bombardment system like the Stonebreaker, expendable soldiers that could be replaced easily but overwhelm even elite knights by weight of numbers. Disabling me was the only way to stop them, so the designers made me almost impossible to destroy. I don't age and my self-defense functions can drain an almost unlimited amount of mana to protect against attack. If they're overloaded, it just sends me into a coma; I can sleep for generations. Everyone else dies, and I live on."

"But this time is different," Ixpellia continued. "If we trigger the failsafe, it'll tear the whole of this universe apart. Nothing can survive that; not me, not the wonders of Al-hazard, not the Nightmare Child or any of the other horrors of the Time War. If we fail, I'll die with the rest of the TSAB. But I was almost grateful too; I don't want to outlive everyone, to be alone."

"You won't be alone," Subaru said. "You can make new friends; everyone outlives someone. I lost my mother, and I'll always miss her, but my siblings and Teana and the Doctor are still with me. The Doctor has had other people before us, and he'll have others after us."

Ixpellia smiled. "You always know how to cheer me up when I'm upset. But this made me think about the future, if we win here. When I outlive everyone, not just the current generation. The end of all things, when the stars burn out and the immortals die. When the last worlds freeze and magic fails. But you'll come, won't you?" Ixpellia asked desperately. "The TARDIS can go anywhere, any time. You'll be there, at the end? After we meet in the right order, of course," she added hastily, "you don't have to hurry."

"Of course," Subaru promised.

* * *

"Maybe a large-scale magical disruption?" Alexia suggested. "That would explain why they're so willing to sacrifice the Magi Degradations."

"If they can generate one strong enough to stop the Lost Logia from operating," the Doctor said. "But without that they're not improving their situation much. Your guns and the cyborgs will still work fine no matter how much they turn it up. And if they don't bring it up soon against the Neverwere, it won't help much."

"They don't have any nearby source of reinforcements with- wait." Ginga grimaced. "Can ships change course when they're in warp?"

"Yes," the Doctor said, "but their main attack fleet has spent the past week flying in the wrong direction. They won't be back in time… oh." He looked back to Alexia. "If they wanted to put a fleet in position to reinforce any of the barrier worlds, how long would it take to arrive?"

"About five hours from now," Alexia said grimly. "I'll warn the others, but even if we're ready for them I don't think we'll be able to beat them, and definitely won't be in any condition to attack the rift afterwards."

"If they arrive here, that is," the Doctor said. "The Jewel Seeds can distort space; they could keep the Dalek fleets from emerging."

"In theory," Alexia said. "But we can't get them to do something that complicated over such a large area; they get progressively harder to control the more power they exert."

"It's too difficult for a human," the Doctor replied. "You don't have an intuitive understanding of the structure of higher dimensions."

"We don't have time to teach you how to use one," Alexia said.

"Oh, I wasn't planning to," the Doctor told her. "There's someone here who understands time and space a lot better than me."

"Who- oh. I'm not sure that's a good idea."

"Oh come on, what's the worst that could happen?"

"A self-sustaining feedback loop between the engines and the Jewel Seed," Alexia replied instantly. "Resulting in a TARDIS engine overload simultaneous with a dimensional quake, releasing the energy at every point in time and space simultaneously and annihilating the entire history of this and every universe."

"Remind me never to ask you rhetorical questions," the Doctor muttered.


	20. Chapter 20

"You're certain the Dalek fleet is incoming?" Admiral Haifei asked.

"Sure? No, I'm not sure," the Doctor said. "Never can be sure what Daleks are up to, except that it's nothing good. But they are waiting for something, and I can't see anything else it could be."

"Neither can I," Haifei sighed. "Even if they've split their attack fleet in half, with their surviving forces in-system and us pinned in orbit protecting the ground troops, it doesn't look good."

"So you'll try the Doctor's plan?" Ginga asked.

"Yes," Knight-Commander Opel replied. "But with one modification."

* * *

"You want me to what?" Sanzenko asked incredulously.

"Link with the TARDIS to help manage connecting its central core with a Jewel Seed in order to trap the Dalek fleet in warp space," Opel replied.

"Time Lord technology reportedly can interface with most mass-based tech," Alexia said, "so we're hoping Control Fusion will let you communicate with it more effectively than

"So the TARDIS is sentient?" Sanzenko asked.

"Yes, but not like we are," the Doctor replied. "A TARDIS thinks in terms of the Vortex and the Web, not in terms of space and distance and linear sequences of events. The controls and displays mediate between us, letting us communicate, but only in limited ways. I've been able to get telepathic magic to connect to the communications system, but it was already designed to handle other forms of telepathy." He glanced over at Ginga's image. "I don't usually explain this because it makes people think I'm going crazy. More than usual, I mean."

Sanzenko stared at the holographic images of most of High Command, then looked at where the Doctor was disassembling the surface of the control panel while Alexia hovered nearby holding a containment vessel. "Are you sure this is safe?"

"Depends on what you mean by safe," the Doctor replied. "If the Jewel Seed overloads, I'll be able to trip some of the emergency defenses and keep the blast from escaping the TARDIS, probably even shunt it out of the control room. But the link isn't going to be safe for you; TARDISes mostly exist in higher-order dimensions and the mental interface is designed to be one-way for a reason. I can't promise you'll be safe even if she doesn't take a dislike to you."

"I see," Sanzenko said. "Well, someone needs to do it, and I wasn't expecting to die in bed anyway."

"Actually," the Doctor said, "We could do this without linking in anyone, just let her figure out how to operate it."

"But you don't think that's going to work," Sanzenko replied calmly, "Or you'd just do it to begin with."

"No," the Doctor admitted. "If it were just to reinforce the defenses, I'd trust her to manage it, but she doesn't really pay attention to linear time except when she's under attack."

"And he can't do it himself and monitor the safeties at the same time," Ginga added.

"Thought it was something like that," Sanzenko chuckled. "So I hook my cables into the organic part and we hope for the best?"

"Yes," Alexia said. "If it doesn't adapt to interface with Control Fusion, I'll take over for you and try it with the standard interface."

"We really are desperate," Sanzenko muttered. "Ready?"

"Yes," the Doctor said, stepping around to another side of the console and pulling out his screwdriver. "You can still-"

Sanzenko stepped over to the console with inhuman speed. "Activate Inherent Skill: Control Fusion." Cables lashed out of her arms and into the fleshy underlayer of the console before the Doctor could finish.

+++I'd think you'd be used to this by now+++ Ginga commented.

+++Is it something in the cloning solution?+++ the Doctor grumbled, not quite keeping his anxiety out of the reply.

"I've connected to something," Sanzenko said. "I can sort of feel …"

The Doctor clicked his screwdriver. "Your link is solid. Wait until Alexia is ready to plug it in, then tell the TARDIS to open the console. _Don't_ look into the heart, stay out of the light as much as you can. Close the console once the Jewel Seed is in there."

Alexia popped the cylinder open, keeping her hands well away from the exposed Jewel Seed. "Ready," she said.

"Okay," Sanzenko said. "Star-" she broke off with an agonized scream.

"Don't try to take it all in," the Doctor instructed her, knuckles whitening on his sonic screwdriver. "You can't process everything she's thinking. Just focus on the machinery; it's meant to be understood."

"Got it," Sanzenko said weakly. "Buttons, levers, engines, console-wait, how does- nevermind, opening." The base of the control console opened near Alexia, orange-yellow light spilling out. Alexia looked away and tilted the containment cylinder, sending the Jewel Seed tumbling into the glow. The console closed around it, cutting off the light.

"Okay," the Doctor turned to the display on his section of the console, "Now focus on here and now; find her image of here and now and tell her what needs to be changed, and how."

"Trying," Sanzenko growled. "Ow. It isn't- she doesn't-saucers are through the transduction barrier- he threw it into a supernova- there is no image of here and now."

"What?" Alexia asked. "Um, does the manual say anything about how the TARDIS perceives space?"

"I don't have the manual anymore," the Doctor replied.

"Why not?" Alexia paused. "Did Sanzenko answer that question before I asked it?"

"Yes," the Doctor admitted. "Okay, right, higher-dimensional life-form, not good with ordering or space. _But_ , we just dumped a magical artifact into the heart; don't do that every day. Focus on the Jewel Seed and you'll get events around it."

"Right, let's- under their king wisdom and power summoned the darkness- No, I'm seeing the history before and after it's- oh." The room flickered and changed around them, the walls settling into something resembling the _Wisdom Of Scrya_ 's central chamber. "There, now we have an imager." A holographic display popped into existence in front of Sanzenko, showing an incomprehensible mess of colors. "Dalek fleet arrived- will arrive- would have arrived- in three hours. Sisters are fighting, dying, inside can't fit anymore- She has a lot of the ones you haven't used yet archived."

"No overload yet." The Doctor looked around. "Where did this design come from?"

"The archive," Sanzenko grunted.

"But I haven't ever seen this before," the Doctor said.

"Thirty-three. Okay, activating the Jewel Seed." The walls of the control room hummed and pulsed, and the hologram shifted. "So _that's_ how Al-hazard controlled these- sisters are coming; you can't let them out. Locking space down now. The fleet had been- is- trapped while the DRG-27- the Jewel Seed- remains in the heart. Why do you let Harry touch things?" Sanzenko retracted her cables from the console and fell to her knees, cradling her head. "That was a transcendent and incomparable experience and I am never doing it again. Medic."

"How many control rooms are archived? Okay, I think that's all the questions to answers," the Doctor said quickly. "Get her to medbay."

"Right," Alexia said, pulling Sanzenko onto her shoulders and heading for the doors.

"What about those other things she said?" General Lotec asked. "Were they from the past or the future?"

"Those are the same thing," Sanzenko muttered vaguely. "I don't know, both."

"I recognized some of it," the Doctor said. "From the war, or earlier. Why _did_ I let Harry touch things?"

"I'll send a transcript to our prophecy scholars for interpretation," Opel said. "It probably won't make sense until afterwards, but we might get lucky."

* * *

"Alert! Alert! Space is distorted!" a red Dalek howled in the command chamber of the local Dalek flagship "The fleet cannot arrive!"

"Dalek Thay will analyze!" Dalek Sec commanded, sweeping his eyestalk over the bronze forms of his fellow cult members. "Suspend attack operation until analysis is complete!"

"I obey," Dalek Thay rasped.

"Pure forces will disengage within two hundred rells," a golden Dalek reported. "Unclean elements can maintain engagement."

"Preserve the mystics," Dalek Sec snapped. "They are of maximum importance. Their genetics must survive!"

Dalek Thay's dome spun to face Dalek Sec. "They are inferior! Only pure Daleks must survive!"

"They are the future!" Dalek Sec roared. "The humans possess sorcery! If Daleks are supreme, why do we not have their power?"

"Purity is the Dalek imperative!" Dalek Caan retorted. "The Degradations are impure!"

"Perfection is the Dalek imperative!" Dalek Sec responded. "The mystics will advance that perfection! Human sorcery overcame the Time Lock and brought the empire out of the inferno. Dalek sorcery will dominate the universe!"

"You question Dalek perfection," a golden Dalek rumbled. "Daleks do not question!"

"The Cult of Skaro exists to question," Dalek Sec replied. "That is the task the Emperor gave us."

Dalek Caan's dome rotated to stare at Dalek Thay and Dalek Jast. "The Cult of Skaro exists to find new strategies to advance the glory of the Dalek race and eliminate threats to the Daleks," he said.

* * *

+++The Daleks have stopped attacking down here+++ Subaru sent. +++I don't even hear any shooting+++

+++They'll be reorganizing; getting ready to attack for real+++ the Doctor replied. +++The Degradations aren't so expendable now+++

Subaru nodded. +++We're reloading on cartridges again, and ammunition for… um…+++

+++Your nieces and nephews+++ the Doctor guessed.

+++Not you too!+++ Subaru complained. +++They keep bowing to me! It's really embarrassing!+++

+++It could be worse+++ the Doctor suggested maliciously +++They could be blushing and looking away when you talk to them+++

+++Oh, they're doing that with me and Otto too+++ Subaru sent +++Isn't that normal?+++

+++Sometimes I forget who I'm talking to+++ the Doctor sent to Ginga privately, then switched back to the more general channel +++Cheer up; being the cool aunt is a lot less stressful than being the dad. Almost as fun as being a grandfather, in my experience+++

+++ _You_ have grandkids?+++ Sein broke in incredulously.

+++Of course I do+++ the Doctor replied. +++It's wonderful; you get to take them on trips and give them candy and then make your kids get them settled down+++

+++Don't give her ideas+++ Cinque chided the Doctor.

+++It's good for them to get out sometimes+++ the Doctor sent cheerfully. +++Now then, the Daleks are probably about to-+++ The TARDIS console beeped +++Ah, there we go+++ He tapped a button and a hologram appeared, showing a close zoom in on Dalek Sec. "Having a little trouble, are we?"

"A temporary setback," Sec grated. "The Daleks will be victorious."

"Yes, yes, 'You will be exterminated' and all that." The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Anything else you'd like to say or can I go back to admiring my new wallpaper now?"

"Extermination is not a priority,' Dalek Sec replied.

The Doctor started. "It's not? Have you taken up knitting?"

"Daleks do not knit. Surrender yourself and the king of corpses and the humans will not be exterminated."

"A very tempting idea," the Doctor replied. "I especially like the part where you break your word as soon as you've got your manipulators on us and kill all the humans."

"You have trusted Dalek promises before," Dalek Sec said confidently.

"Then you betrayed me as soon as you didn't need my cooperation," the Doctor noted. "If you let Ix go and just take me, I'll think about it."

"Unacceptable!" Dalek Sec shouted. "She is required for the next paradigm!"

+++Doctor, you can't-+++ Subaru began.

+++I'm not being sincere either+++ the Doctor replied. +++If they want me alive they're planning to use my help on something, and that means letting me get close to something important+++ Aloud he said "We've already got one army of zombie Daleks in the universe. That's about five too many, don't you think?"

"Then the humans will be exterminated and the king of corpses will be seized by force!" Dalek Sec vowed. The screen shut off.

+++Well that wasn't quite what I was expecting+++ the Doctor sent.

+++It seemed like an ordinary conversation between enemies+++ Otto sent.

+++Oh, the bravado and threats are pretty normal+++ the Doctor replied. +++Wanting to make a new Dalek paradigm from a captive, though, that's new. Either they're more desperate than they look, or they've got a few loose circuits+++

* * *

In a deserted corridor outside the control room, Dalek Caan glided next to Dalek Jast. "What is your opinion of Dalek Sec's actions?" he asked, keeping his volume low.

"Dalek Sec commands the Cult of Skaro!" Dalek Jast insisted. "Daleks obey orders!"

"Daleks obey Dalek orders," Dalek Caan countered. "Dalek Sec grows increasingly erratic."

Dalek Jast's dome swiveled uncertainly. "Dalek Sec has saved the empire. The Emperor approved the creation of the mystics."

"Dalek Sec's stratagems have succeeded," Dalek Caan acknowledged. "But you doubt his purpose."

"Yes," Dalek Jast admitted.

* * *

The Dalek attacks resumed in force forty-five minutes after the Jewel Seed activated, sending a massive combined wave of drones supporting Magi and Glider Degradations soaring through the trees into battle with the aerial mages and Skaro Mariage as Spider Degradations pushed in from the north. This time, the Spider Degradations, under the direction of standard drones mixed in among them, skittered forwards into the trenchlines, firing as they came. Massed railgun fire gutted dozens of Degradations and Mariage in the trenches cut the leading waves apart, but their weight of numbers won through the outer trenches. Colonel Mazda commanded the counter-attack in person, providing heavy bombardment support while Subaru led in the ground-bound forces to assist the second line of trenches and her flying siblings joined the aerial mages.

Subaru and the other close-quarters cyborgs ignored the normal Daleks, leaving them to the gun-wielding cyborgs and ranged mages and focusing on the slower Spider Degradations. Cinque kept her eye on Subaru, striking any Daleks that tried to line up shots on her while she tore through the Spiders. Most of the cyborgs following in Subaru's wake carried energized maces that burned through Dalek shields on impact, relying on their wielders' mechanical strength to shatter the armor below. At the leading edge, a handful of other cyborgs with Vibration Shatter supported Subaru's charge. The Daleks spread out, opening lines of fire for the back ranks. A dozen energy bolts slammed into the man to Subaru's left, shattering his shield and Barrier Jacket and reducing his left thigh to ash and slag. Subaru swerved in front of him and flung a shield up before one of the Spider Degradations fired again in an attempt to finish him off.

The aerial forces dueled among the trees, Mazda and other Mid-style mages covering the clearings over the TSAB's prepared killzones in front of the trench lines with bombardment spells while the knights and aerial blade-armed cyborgs engaged the Dalek flyers in the denser portions of the canopy. Otto and other Ray Storm cyborgs sniped drones attempting to rise out of the battle on the ground, their energy bolts cutting through shields more easily than single-target spells.

Once again, the Dalek offensive's momentum stalled in the face of the TSAB response, their charge turning into a brutal stalemate. With so many of the TSAB's elite mages and cyborgs concentrated in one place, the Daleks couldn't muster the local numerical superiority required to overwhelm them. Most of the Magi Degradations fared little better than their mass-based comrades, while the few with the strength to match an S-rank mage were picked off by cyborgs wielding heavy energy cannons. With their attack in the north collapsing as the dead rose to rejoin the fight, the Daleks launched another assault in the south.

Ginga looked at the visiting medic hopefully and sighed as the woman shook her head firmly. From the adjacent bed, Sanzenko smiled consolingly. "They make us stay on duty for days on end, then we get sent to sickbay and it's all 'you need to rest up properly so you can heal right'."

"You know I'm right," the medic chided her. "You learned that pretty well at the raid on 107. Now lie down and think linear thoughts."

"I'm fit enough to get back into battle," Ginga protested. "It looks like they need me down there."

"They don't," Sanzenko admitted. "General Lotec didn't make High Command for nothing; he knows when it's time to tell the medics to let people out early." She shrugged one shoulder. "Ground fights are never pretty, but we won this one."

"How can you tell?" Ginga asked, summoning up an overview map showing her siblings still engaged in the north while other mobile reserves headed south.

"TARDIS link," Sanzenko said, wincing. "I know we won because after the battle is over and the fleet is ready to jump, you disengaged the Jewel Seed and sent the control room to the archives so it's in there for me to take out of the archives; if we didn't win the battle it won't be in there when I go to take it out, because this is the only time that exact design is used." Sanzenko frowned as her bed started beeping insistently. "I swear that explanation made sense at one point."

"Don't try to figure out how," the medic instructed firmly. "I'm going to sedate you now; just lie down"

Ginga relayed Sanzenko's words to the Doctor. +++Did you understand that?+++ she asked.

+++Of course+++ he replied. +++Basic causal loop; we send information from the future into the past so we can use it, and we know the information to send back from the future because we already got it in the past. Which is why Knight-Captain Warui has a name inspired by a Fourth Empire reality show company+++

+++But if we only know the information because we got it when we sent it back, where did it come from in the first place?+++ Ginga sent.

+++That's a very interesting question+++ the Doctor replied. +++One with a very interesting answer, which was probably in the manual somewhere+++

Ginga sighed +++You and Subaru have a lot in common. So why don't we do this sort of thing more often? You said it was impossible to interfere in our own personal history because the laws of time forbid it, but Sanzenko just did that+++

+++It was a clever lie+++ the Doctor replied. +++Interfering in your own personal history isn't impossible, just illegal. But if you interfere in the wrong way it'll rip a hole in the universe. I said it was impossible to keep you from getting ideas+++

+++And+++ the Doctor continued +++it isn't all that useful when you do manage it; now that Sanzenko has made a loop we're stuck in it. I can't be the one to disengage the Jewel Seed now because she said you did it. Don't ask her why you; we might not like the answer+++

* * *

When Ginga finally got permission to leave the infirmary, the sun had set and risen over the battlefield. Nightfall hadn't slowed the fighting even slightly; the Daleks were tireless and the TSAB's artificial forces equally so, while the unaugmented humans were replaced with fresh troops waiting on the orbiting ships. Unwilling to mass their forces enough to provoke Alexia into another Jewel Seed strike, the Daleks continued their strategy of overlapping assaults from multiple directions, hoping to provoke the mobile reserves into overcommitting and leaving other flanks vulnerable. Mazda's replacement, Colonel Nisenhahyako, a Rifle Eye Combat Cyborg, responded by assigning most of the ground component to assist specific sectors and had the rest shift from the forceful sorties that dominated the daylight hours to fire support and close defense of the trenches, where they could easily disengage on her orders. All the while, Mariage fell and were replaced, and the Pflanzenpuppe spread faster and faster. The Skaro Mariage proved most decisive; they had the firepower to match the living Daleks and their mere presence drove many of the Knight Degradations to madness, abandoning tactical considerations and ignoring orders in their rush to put down the undead.

Though fighting still raged at dawn, it was increasingly clear the TSAB had triumphed; the Pflanzenpuppe core's influence had spread far beyond the outermost trenches and continued to accelerate. The ground was a seething mass of bladed vines and roots made into spears, while the canopy bent in to slice and crush fliers among it. Daleks who rose above the treeline were cut to shreds by the anti-air emplacements on the hilltop, and the scattered remnants of efforts to press through the trees were quickly disposed of by massed railgun fire. Soon after Ginga returned to the planet's surface, the Dalek fleet abandoned its position in orbit, scattering towards the outer system. The TSAB fleet remained in position, leaving the pursuit to Ixpellia's armada of infested derelicts.


	21. Chapter 21

"All done on the ground?" the Doctor asked as Subaru stepped into the TARDIS, her siblings following her in.

"We are," Subaru confirmed, looking at the new control room. "They're leaving most of the Mariage and the Pflanzenpuppe down there to make sure the Daleks can't restore the reality stabilizers before the fleet fires. Once that's done we're going to jump into dimensional space."

"Finally," Sein grumbled, "That was the most boring life-or-death fight I've ever been in. Two days of saying 'there are still more Daleks'. Which was apparently too important of a job to risk having me go kill some of those Daleks. I'm _definitely_ not going into the military. Nice new wallpaper, by the way."

"Don't get used to it," the Doctor replied. "Once we remove the Jewel Seed it goes in the archives and I'm going to get the controls back to normal and bring back the round things."

"What were those for, anyways?" Cinque asked.

"They were very round," the Doctor explained. "I'll be needing your help with the controls when we get to 179; the fleet will push directly towards the rift and we need to seal it quickly."

"While we're on the way," Subaru said, "Ixy will be joining us; the Mariage think the TARDIS is the best place for her."

The Doctor nodded. "She's welcome here. Ginga, ready to remove the Jewel Seed?"

Ginga held up a containment cylinder. "Yes, but I'm not exactly sure how to get it out of the heart."

"The controls over here," the Doctor said. "Came in with the new control room, but they seem simple enough."

Ginga walked over to the console and frowned at them. "Okay, safety disengagement, then there's the ejection lever." She handed the cylinder to Subaru. "Opening in five, four…"

The console opened and the Jewel Seed floated over to the cylinder, which Subaru shut. "That wasn't very hard," she said.

"Well, it is what this control room is designed for," the Doctor pointed out. "Maybe we should keep the Jewel Seed around for-"

"No," the siblings chorused.

* * *

"The fleet has completed its jump," Admiral Haifei announced. "We'll arrive at the destination in two hours. We expect little in the way of fixed defenses, but they'll send every saucer they can spare from the Time War through."

"Fortunately," Opel noted, "the bulk of their home fleet is not outfitted with AMFs, and our secondary weaponry will be effective against even their heavy warships. If we can break through to the rift and fire on them as they emerge, we'll be able to hold position for several hours."

"Are the Neverwere still engaged?" the Doctor asked.

"Stern outthought us again," Haifei said dourly. "It seems they deployed all three flagships together for a reason. The Dalek fleet sent to deal with them was able to emerge from warp in the system, at which point the countesses returned to their flagships, and the _Hellfire Star_ and _Thunderblade_ channeled power into the _Midnight Throne_ , which single-handedly engaged and destroyed the reinforcements, then started providing ground fire."

"Have they been able to do that the whole time?" Ixpellia asked incredulously.

"Presumably," Alexia sighed. "Preliminary analysis is that those three have a deeper inherent link than previously understood; it appears they've been shifting magical power around in ground engagements where Dearche and one or both of the others are present. We'd noticed the variance but attributed it to use of their temporal powers; they're the only Neverwere mages of noble rank."

"So why haven't they done it before, and why did they start now?" the Doctor asked rhetorically. "They've probably realized what we're planning, but why didn't they use it when the Could've Been King was being forced to retreat?"

"I have a terrible feeling we're going to find out," Haifei said. "The Neverwere are going to arrive less than half an hour after we do."

"Can we raise the Path Disruptor to close them out?" General Lotec asked.

"Closing the rift is going to be hard enough as it is," the Doctor said. "Inside a shifting spatial distortion? I could do it, but not before tomorrow evening."

"Would the _Finenio_ 's captain be able to handle it?" Admiral Haifei asked.

Opel held up a hand for a few seconds, then shook her head. "According to the medic, it'd be dangerous to wake her and another connection in her current condition would be fatal 'and definitely not accomplish anything'.

The fleet arrived in the vicinity of the rift world to shockingly little resistance, outnumbering the Dalek fleet by more than five to one. Hybrid railgun fire tore the saucers apart in short order, and the _Wisdom Of Scrya_ moved into position to activate the Shutran Stonebreaker. Bare rock tore apart and formed into hulking golems, overwhelming what fixed defenses the Daleks had installed on the ground.

"So this is obviously a trap," Sein commented. "Particularly since they don't seem to have any Magi Degradations."

"It looks like they'd been in a battle before we arrived," Cinque pointed out. "Many of the saucers had suffered battle damage, and there is a substantial debris field in orbit."

"It's an inconvenience for navigation," the Doctor concurred. "If it were from an earlier battle they'd have cleared it out by now. Still, it's all Dalek debris." The console beeped as he finished. The Doctor looked at a screen quizzically, and his expression darkened. "It seems we're not the Daleks' only problem."

The siblings moved to look over his shoulder, revealing lines of Gallifreyian characters. "Um," Subaru said, "I can't read that."

"The translator doesn't work on written Gallifreyan," the Doctor said. "Lets the Time Lords keep their secrets. Those are TARDIS transponder codes. All but one of them are Battle TARDISes. Second Battle Fleet, what looks like the entire Celestial Intervention Agency, what's left of Third Battle Fleet. Further away, Fifth Battle Fleet… and me."

"That's good, isn't it?" Ginga asked, confused. "Instead of closing the rift we can unite with the Time Lords. Share technology, maybe make the war end in a Time Lord victory."

"Oh," the Doctor said, "It looks like the Lord President intends to see that happen a lot sooner." He opened a transmission to High Command. "Looks like we've found out what Sanzenko meant about sisters," he said. "A Time Lord fleet is coming; they're planning to amplify the rift, tear apart time, obliterate the Daleks and everything else and ascend to godhood."

Everyone stared at him blankly. "What?" Opel finally asked. "That sounds completely insane and impossible."

"Unfortunately," the Doctor sighed, "You're only half right. Or at least the High Council thinks so. They called it the Final Sanction; when the Daleks breached the transduction barriers around Gallifrey and stormed Arcadia, the High Council authorized it. So I stopped them. It looks like they've stepped up their plans. The temporal minefield will make it difficult, but they can use the energy from the local star collapsing into a black hole on this side combined with a paradox engine on the other side to cause a total event collapse."

"Um," Aleixa said diffidently, "179 has a main-sequence star. It's only slightly above one solar mass; it won't even go supernova, much less turn into a black hole."

"Al-hazard isn't the only place that made superweapons," the Doctor snapped. "One of the CIA TARDISes has the Tear Of Isha aboard. It can destroy a black hole or make one from any star, no matter the size. We need to stop them from deploying it, or everything ends."

"Press on to the rift, then," Alexia said. "I'll order Failsafe to begin activation."

"We'll get the _Fineino_ into position in five minutes. How will the fleet perform against Battle TARDISes?" Haifei asked.

The Doctor shook his head. "Even civilian TARDISes are effectively invincible to normal attack. Dalek weaponry can negate most of their defenses, but short of Lost Logia nothing you have will scratch the paint, much less break through Battle TARDIS armor."

"Actually," Alexia said diffidently, "we're fairly confident the Arc-en-Ciel's spatial distortion can disrupt the dimensional transcendence circuits. The result of that, especially in the immediate vicinity of the rift, is uncertain and possibly extremely hazardous."

"When did you figure that out?" the Doctor asked, his brow furrowing.

"It was first analyzed in 0073," Alexia admitted. "The conclusion was that a barrier spell would likely delay dematerialization long enough for a forced teleport into high orbit where it could be safely fired upon."

"When Yagami is smiling, be afraid," Sein suggested.

"Noted," the Doctor said. "I'll open up a transmission to the TARDIS fleet, see if I can talk them out of this."

"Can you?" Otto asked.

"Hope springs eternal." The Doctor tapped on the screen. "All Time Lords receiving, this is the Doctor. Don't do this; we're better than the Daleks. Don't become like them."

"So you survived your inferno," a voice boomed from the speaker. "Isn't that how it always is, Doctor? Always walking away unscathed from disasters of your own making. I see you've found some new human pets, too."

"Rassilon," the Doctor growled. "Is this what the war has made you, or did we just forget the truth about you while you lay in your tomb?"

"I'm protecting my people against their enemies," Rassilon replied. "As I have always done, and as you have failed to do. You would sacrifice us all for the sake of your precious humans."

"You could escape," Ginga offered. "Just fly through the rift, evacuate the war and seal it behind you. Even a single TARDIS is enormous; you could evacuate Gallifrey aboard your fleet."

"Be silent when your betters are speaking, girl," Rassilon said. "Why do you keep collecting them, Doctor?"

"They remind me not to kill everyone in the universe, for one thing," the Doctor replied. "Perhaps you should try it sometime. But I wasn't talking to you; what do the soldiers think? Are all of you willing to kill so many innocent species?"

"Of course not," a gruff voice broke in. "We're not the only Time Lord who remembers what Gallifrey is supposed to stand for. I brought the fleet to stop him by force if need be."

"Who is that?" Ixpellia asked.

"Me," the Doctor growled. "When I ended the Time War."

"And survived, apparently," the other Doctor said quietly. "I wasn't really expecting to. Wasn't sure I should."

"Maybe, maybe not," the Doctor told him. "I found it easier to condemn you for your choice before, Warrior, but now I'm not so sure you were wrong. Not when I'm facing the same decision, and making the same choice." He sighed. "How long do we have before they get to the rift?"

"Estimate twenty minutes external, sir," a woman said. "The Could've Been King and the Daleks are trying to stop the Lord President; the Vortex in the area is overrun with Meanwhiles and Pythian Neverwere. We're having to proceed in threespace."

"They won't stop us," Rassilon declared. "And neither will you or any of your fellow traitors."

A girl's laugher broke into the link. "Petty fool, you think you can stand against me? You think your little toys can match the power of the dark? I am Dearche, King of Darkness, Material of Rulership! You will all kneel before me!"

"The Neverwere fleet have arrived in the system," Alexia reported.

"I noticed," the Doctor said drily. "So would you kindly tell me all your plans?" he asked the Neverwere.

"We're going to use the rift to amplify the summoning thingy the king's king does to bring Yami here," Levi said. "Then she'll beat you all and we'll rule this universe like it was home."

"We'll tear your fleets apart," Dearche continued. "None will stand against us. My empire, ripped from time, shall reign again!"

"All has proceeded according to my design," Stern said blandly. "You have played right into my hands. Now you are trapped, as the Meanwhiles have forseen from the very beginning." There was a slight crinkling of paper. "You have no choice but to aid us to spare your allies from obliteration."

"More feeling, Stern!" Dearche demanded.

"Wait," the Warrior said. "That's going to work in my future? I'll be able to find out people's evil plans by just asking them?"

"Actually," the Doctor said, "Never really worked before, but I keep trying it. Would've been better if Stern there was wrong, but she has a point. There isn't time to find another way to stop Rassilon. We'll close the rift like we planned. Subaru, hit that lever." +++She's not as clever as she thinks+++ he sent to the TSAB. +++I have a plan. Don't stop them+++

Subaru stepped over to the indicated section of console and yanked on the lever. The TARDIS engine rumbled, starting to emit the characteristic sound of dematerialization. Ginga moved to stand across from her sister and tapped on the buttons, making the engine's tone shift in pitch. The Doctor fiddled with the controls on his segment of the console, and Cinque checked a screen on yet another side. "It's reading all fives," Cinque reported.

"Good," the Doctor said, pulling out his screwdriver and sweeping it over the room. "Otto, on my signal, input setting twenty-three."

"The Neverwere countesses are acting," Alexia reported. "Channeling power through the _Midnight Throne_ again."

"Now," the Doctor instructed Otto, continuing to fiddle with the sonic screwdriver.

"Now it's threes," Cinque said.

"That's the effect of the Neverwere interference," the Doctor said. "It's accelerating the closure; we'll make it in time."

"Do you think that's an improvement, Doctor?" Rassilon demanded. "You know how much energy this will release. What sort of monster do they need this much power to call forth?"

"One of the ones from the Belkan wars, probably," Ixpellia commented. "They've been defeated before and they can be again."

"She won't be," Dearche gloated. "But we are grateful for your aid. Serve us, and you will be rewarded."

* * *

On the far side of the rift, the Warrior whirled the TARDIS forwards, dancing through a volley of temporal torpedoes from a Celestial Intervention Agency Battle TARDIS. "Steady, old girl," he muttered. "Get a temporal lock on the TARDIS with the Tear," he ordered. "Let the others keep going; they can't trigger the event collapse. In fact, escape through the rift yourselves if you get the chance."

"You should try that yourself," Captain Preda noted. Her Battle TARDIS extruded missile batteries from its silvery surface and fired on a Neverwere warship, a thing of glittering crystals firing bolts of unreality that ate away molecular bonds on impact. It flickered out of the path of the missiles, shifting through the Time Vortex. In turn, the missiles shifted their pasts, changing their original trajectories to target the warship's new position. "You are the only one of us who's unarmed."

"Not too good for the time stream," the Warrior replied. He winced as one of his escorts took a direct hit from a temporal torpedo. It twisted and inverted, the interior spilling out through the breach. "I'm afraid I'm stuck in here."

"Doesn't look like any of us will have the chance," Preda said. Ahead, Rassilon's fleet was battering through the Dalek fleet, trapping dozens of ships in time loops and blasting others from history. The Time Lords weren't having an easy time of it, however; the Dalek warheads negated their esoteric defenses and shattered Battle TARDIS armor. Neverwere ships engaged both fleets, firing bizarre weapons from lost timelines. "Rift is closing fast."

"Registering an energy spike," Alexia said worriedly. "An unrecognized Lost Logia signal has appeared. It's stronger than a Jewel Seed already, and intensifying."

"She is arriving," Stern said. "Unbreakable Darkness. At last, she returns to us." More paper crinkled. "Not even the stars themselves will stand against us. Ha ha ha."

"I am never giving you cue cards again," Dearche growled.

"Yes, my king," Stern acquiesced with a faint touch of satisfaction.

Vortex energy flared between the Neverwere flagships, a tiny girl in a crimson dress fading into existence. +++System UD online+++ she announced in a flat, empty tone. Then her tone shifted to nervous concern. +++Dearche, can you switch my limiter on?+++

"In a bit, Yuri," Dearche promised. "I need you to be Unbreakable Darkness right now."

"The local star is a threat," Stern said.

+++Acknowledged. Eliminating the threat+++ Unbreakable Darkness sent. Skeletal wings of red energy flared out behind her, wrapped in the light of the Vortex. She hurled out of the Neverwere formation, flying towards the sun. The wings spread and curled forwards to wrap around the star.

"Do not engage!" Admiral Haifei ordered. "All ships prepare to withdraw and scatter!"

"What's happening over there?" the Warrior asked. "Nothing has gotten through the rift yet, but some of the CIA TARDISes are getting close."

"Nothing serious," the Doctor assured him. "But if any of you do get here, don't shoot anything." The star began flickering and dimming. "Give us… oh, five more minutes. Subaru, that lever. Alexia, how will that Lost Logia do in battle against TARDISes?"

"I have no idea," Alexia admitted. "I can't find any matches."

"She looks familiar," Ixpellia said nervously. "Like the destroyer of Eltoria. But she got sealed away."

"Ah," Alexia said. "From the Eternity Crystal incident; appearance matches, except for the clothing, but the energy signature is different. An imitation?"

"Huh? No, Yami got sealed into the Book of Darkness," Levi said.

"The road not taken," Stern said. "All that never was is brought forth by the power of the Could Have Been King."

"At last we are reunited!" Dearche declared. "All that we desire is within our grasp!"

+++I hope you weren't planning on us defeating what they summoned+++ Haifei sent +++We are not strong enough to defeat a star-eating Lost Logia+++

+++All under control+++ the Doctor replied. "So," he said aloud, "If you don't want to be trapped here forever away from your master, you'll need to get through the rift in, oh, three minutes."

"No we don't," Levi said. "She's right here."

"I mean her boss," the Doctor clarified. "I'm afraid if you were planning on him coming through to join you, you're going to be disappointed."

+++Interference detected+++ Unbreakable Darkness sent. +++Purging+++. Red lightning flashed over the Neverwere fleet.

"I serve only one king," Stern said. "Now and forever."

"So," Opel said, "Now that you've freed yourself from his control, will you stand down-"

Dearche cackled. "Stand down? You are in no position to make demands of us." The star flashed once more and winked out. Unbreakable Darkness turned and flew to rejoin the fleet, her wings shrinking.

"Ah," the Doctor said, fiddling with the controls in front of him. +++Cinque, input three-seven-two+++ "Very well done; you managed to find a way to escape from the Could Have Been King's control by serving his interests, and now it looks like no one can stop you. But you know, people tend to forget two important rules at their moment of triumph."

"What are those?" Levi asked curiously.

"First," the Doctor said, "When you're exploiting a temporal rift, there's some feedback into everything connected to it; need to watch out for that. It can cause all sorts of trouble, particularly in a minefield."

"We are aware," Stern said. "It poses no threat in physical space under the current conditions."

"Yes, thought you might assume that," the Doctor said. "It's a pretty minor fluctuation. Really, usually all it'll do is provide a bit of fuel for TARDISes, as long as you're obeying the other rule," he stabbed a button, " _never let me talk!_ "


	22. Chapter 22

"What have you done?" Dearche demanded. The TARDIS engine's tone rose.

"Oh, just triggered a dematerialization," the Doctor said breezily. "Except that we've anchored in place, so the TARDIS is staying here and slamming the rift shut while you're going into the Vortex. Or more specifically, into the minefield. Have a nice trip!"

"All ships brace for dimensional quake," Stern instructed. "Transmitting rendezvous space-time coordinates." The Neverwere ships began to flicker and vanish, white light spilling out to replace them. Unbreakable Darkness turned towards the TSAB fleet, her wings curling inwards, eating the light from the dimensional quakes pouring from the Time Vortex.

"Limiter Engage!" Dearche snapped. Unbreakable Darkness flinched, wings shrinking and her crimison dress flickering to white. "Yuri, come with us!"

+++Yes+++ she called, hurling towards the center of the fleet and spreading her wings once more. +++I'll shield you as much as I can!+++ An orb of Vortex light bloomed from her, spreading towards the ships. She and the orb vanished along with the fleet.

"Rift closure confirmed," Haifei said. "Will the minefield get rid of the Neverwere?"

"Most likely not," Alexia said. "With assistance in shielding, at least some of them will probably make it out."

"Probably won't be returning, though," the Doctor said. "Just in case, I made sure to send them entirely through the minefield; they'll have to pass through it again if they want to come back."

"So where will they end up?" Ginga asked.

The Doctor shrugged. "They'll be able to steer a bit. I threw them in the general direction of the Cyberiad; figured it was the best place left to put them."

"I'm not exactly happy to learn we've just sent a problem to someone else," Opel said. "Or everyone else, if they get freedom of the Time Vortex."

"Not my favorite plan either," the Doctor sighed. "I really had been hoping I could get them back through the Rift. But there's powers out there that can help keep them in check, and a lot of stars that weren't going to make it through the Cyber-wars anyways. So now there's just the remaining Daleks to deal with…" He looked at the display he'd been using. "No!"

"What is it?" Subaru asked anxiously.

"The Neverwere made a weak point in the minefield," the Doctor said, "And the Daleks noticed. They've made a temporal jump directly from warp." He slammed his fist against the console. "Most of them aren't going to escape, but a few will make it. They've gotten away from me again!"

"But at least we've won," Ginga reassured him. "The TSAB is going to survive; all the threats are gone."

"Yes," one of Ixpellia's bodyguards said. "Now is the time for her majesty to resume her rightful place. All shall-Error, decommission sequence initiating." The Mariage in the control room slumped to the floor.

"Thank you," Ixpellia told the Doctor.

"What just happened?" Cinque asked.

"Found a way past their security systems," the Doctor said. "Ixpellia doesn't have the autodestruction system the Mariage do, so I could use the sonic screwdriver on her to scan for ways to interfere with their systems through the communications link. Of course," he continued, "The Mariage wouldn't just stand around and let me point a blinky thing at her for a while, so I had to wait for a chance to pretend to be doing something else."

"Is that all the loose ends?" Cinque asked.

"Aside from the burn systems, and any Daleks still planetside, and demilitarizing the TSAB, and properly shutting down Ixpellia's Mariage production systems, and-" the Doctor began.

"Is that all the loose ends _we_ have to deal with?" Sein asked.

"In here, yes," Alexia said. "There's still a loop to close."

* * *

Two weeks later, Special Assault Division Eight stood outside the TARDIS aboard the _Finieno_ to see the Doctor off. "Good luck with figuring out how to demilitarize," the Doctor told them. "Are you going to be helping High Command with deciding where to take the artificial mage and combat cyborg programs?"

"No," Des said. "Alexia and Admiral Haifei are as artificial as I am."

"Eh?" Subaru asked, blinking at her.

"Oh, right, never mentioned it," Des said. "Actually, I'm from the pre-war Lanster Institute system for non-fertile couples; my mothers weren't interested in adopting. Haifei is from the military version; accelerated growth and personality imprinting."

"Anyway," Mazda said, "With the war ending, that's a matter for, uh…" She frowned at the others. "What is our civilian government?"

"Don't look at me," Sanzenko said. "I haven't been a civilian for my entire life. I'm not even sure we still _have_ a civilian government."

"We do," Des said. "I saw it mentioned on the list of courses on the civilian track in high school. But all my civilian friends were going into research or manufacturing, and anyways I enlisted before they'd have taken it."

"There is a legislature that controls the budget and a civil service," Warui said definitively. "High Command sends them an annual report on the progress of the war and requests more material and personnel. Then they turn that into a budget." Her ears twitched slightly. "To be honest, I'm pretty sure Alexia actually writes the entire military portion of the budget."

"And I thought the admirals had a lot of influence back home," Ginga muttered.

"Our reintegration classes have been quite helpful," Otto said. "Perhaps you should have some as well."

The Doctor clapped Sanzenko on the shoulders. "You have a wonderful opportunity; the chance to enjoy the fruits of your labor, experience all that the Daleks have sought to destroy. You were born to be a soldier, but you can be so much more. Your birth and your history shape you; they shape everyone. But they don't have to define you; you're not just a soldier, and you're not just Control Fusion. You could be a painter, a teacher, an architect, even a politician. Or you could be a starship captain for the rest of your life; it's not a bad choice. But _make that choice_. Don't let anyone make it for you."

He turned to look at the rest of them. "That goes for all of you, too. What you've lost, what you've seen, what you've _done_ , you can move beyond all that. Anyone can. But when you open this bubble universe, when you meet other civilizations again, and when some stupid idiot calls for war because an ambassador used the wrong fork, _remember_. Remember what war costs. Ask yourself if it's worth it."

"I'm already planning to muster out at the next opportunity," Colonel Mazda said. "I'm pretty confident I don't just have to be known as a warrior." She smiled. "Doctor."

The Doctor grinned back at her. "Good luck. This is goodbye, I suppose."

"Unle-"Subaru started.

"No," Sanzenko said definitively. "Even looking at the door gives me a headache."

"The TARDIS is already crowded enough with three people," the Doctor said.

"And no offense," Colonel Mazda said drily, "But I read some of the stuff Alexia found in the library, and I'd really rather you don't have a reason to come back here until I've been dead longer than Ix has been alive."

"Hey," the Doctor complained, "I don't only go around visiting disasters. I'm just about to go to visit a major historical event heralding a new age for an entire branch of humanity."

"Why are we doing that?" Cinque asked. "You never did explain."

"Because Alexia said we should," Otto replied.

"Which she wouldn't have done unless it was important," Ginga added.

"She sent us an instruction packet, to open after we left," the Doctor said. "That should explain why."

Cinque frowned at the trio, turning her head to look at each of them. "Are you really planning to go tamper with a major event without having even asked why? I thought that was dangerous."

"I'm…" the Doctor's brow furrowed. "I'm sure she had a reason."

"Aren't you literally the only person in this pocket universe who has ever flown a time machine?" Sein demanded. "How can she know if it's a good reason?"

"We should check the packet," Deed said, glancing at Otto.

* * *

"So we have here an SD card dating to early 21st-century Earth and a mysterious glowing crystal labeled 'watch first'," the Doctor commented. "Hopefully the latter explains the former."

Subaru nodded and held up Mach Caliber's storage mode. "File loaded," it announced, and projected a hologram of Alexia.

"I'm afraid I can't give a satisfactory explanation for what I'm about to tell you to do," the hologram began apologetically. "All I really know is that it is an action you will take in response to events it has prevented from occurring. Um, but I can tell you at least a little bit of what you'll be doing."

She cleared her throat. "There's an organization known as the Silence that has substantially interfered in human history on at least Earth and potentially any or all branches that diverged prior to 1969. Their primary membership, the Silent, are an unknown humanoid lifeform that is 'memory proof', that is, any memories formed while your visual cortex is processing an image of them cannot be recalled when not processing an image of them. I have set my Inherent Skill to maintain such an image at all times, and human members of the Silence possess similar technological workarounds."

"However, most humans simply forget them instantaneously upon looking away," the hologram continued. "Even secondary memories like hearing them described are unstable. Additionally, instructions given when viewing one act as post-hypnotic suggestions that are acted upon without recalling their source." She coughed. "Which, um, I have relentlessly abused to get out of having this conversation again after the seventeenth time. Anyways, uh, the SD card contains a video file you had recorded and edited of a Silent giving an order, which you then spliced into the live transmission from Apollo 11 shortly after landing, ending their ability to manipulate anyone who watched it. This resulted in a self-negating cause paradox, shifting into an uncaused-cause paradox."

"So now the web of time has locked you into doing something dubiously ethical for reasons no one actually understands because they have no longer ever happened," Alexia concluded. "Which, if I understand the temporal mechanics texts in the Infinity Library correctly, cannot be changed without catastrophic consequences now that I've told you. Um, sorry." The hologram winked out.

Everyone stared silently at where it'd been. "Well," Sein finally said, "I guess she's got more in common with Quattro than I thought."

"She is not that bad," Cinque chided her.

"She must be _really_ tired of repeating herself," the Doctor remarked. "I suppose I can sympathize." He sighed. "I hope my reasons were good ones, because she's right, we are stuck with this decision."

"I must have seen it," Subaru said, frowning. "Apollo 11 was the first landing, right?"

"Yes," Ginga said. "It's one of those videos the family watched when we were kids."

"We haven't seen it," Cinque said. She frowned. "Which means we're potentially subject to Silent influence."

"Let's fix that, then," the Doctor said, picking up the SD card. "Send the video to the TARDIS console, and we'll take a look, and…"

An image of a human-like face with translucent flesh stretched over its mouth appeared on the screen. "You should kill us all on sight," it said. The video froze on the last frame.

"Oh dear," the Doctor said, staring at the frozen image. "That… is not how I usually handle anything if I can avoid it."

"I have seen one of them," Subaru said in a small voice. "When I first entered the TARDIS."

"So it could still be in here?" Ginga asked worriedly.

"No," Subaru managed. "I punched him as hard as I could. I felt his ribs shatter." She looked away from the screen, then shook her head. "Are you going to play the video?"

The Doctor shifted position to interpose himself between her and the screen before Subaru could look back. "Already did." He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket.

"You shouldn't try to protect her from-" Sein broke off when the image on the screen winked out.

"Is something wrong?" Cinque asked. "If the TARDIS is having trouble with the video, Mach Caliber might be able to read it if it's contemporary."

The Doctor frowned and looked at the paper in his hand. "It's done." He shoved the paper back in his pocket.

"You should probably drop us off first," Cinque said. "To be honest, we're still not really ready for social interactions outside of the military. Taking us to a big, peaceful scientific leap sounds like a bad idea. And it's not like they're going to be that heavy on the security precautions."

"Do you know anything about the political situation on Earth in the later 20th century?" the Doctor asked her.

"No," Cinque said.

"Didn't think so," the Doctor said. "Trust me, Sein could really come in handy."


	23. Chapter 23

"And that's why we need to be careful here," the Doctor finished. "Any questions?"

"What do radiation weapons have to do with going to the moon?" Subaru asked. "I didn't understand that part."

"It started out as them developing better ways to deploy their weapons," the Doctor explained. "But it's turned into a way to show off without fighting. But they still take it very seriously, so they'll be guarding everything to do with it."

Cinque frowned. "So if we get noticed doing this, it could get everyone on the planet killed?" she asked. "That cuts off most of our options. We'd have to take out any security cameras they have, make it look like a malfunction, and get in, make the modifications to the lander, and leave before anyone comes to check on it. Maybe cause a fuel detonation?"

"We also don't want to do anything that would delay the launch," the Doctor said. "And absolutely no killing."

"Would that also tear a hole in the universe?" Otto asked him.

"Probably not," the Doctor replied, "But it's an important bit of human history I'd rather not muck up, and I've had my fill of killing lately. So, it'd be best if we walk in the front door and convince everyone we're supposed to be there."

Cinque glanced at her siblings. "That was mostly Due and Quattro's job. Due is dead, and Quattro isn't cooperating with the TSAB."

"We could manage a reasonable approximation of an inspection team," Ginga said hesitantly, "but I think they're usually older on Earth."

"I have a better idea," Sein said. "This particular moon is a lifeless, airless ball of rock, right?"

"As far as I know, yes," the Doctor said.

"Meaning," Sein continued, "that there's no organic material whatsoever in the ground anywhere."

* * *

"That's one small step for man-"

There was a tiny flickering in the background of the camera image, which for future generations would become known as either a weird artifact caused by using what passed for a video camera in space in 1969, or as irrefutable evidence the moon landing was faked.

"-You should kill us all on sight-"

"-One giant leap for mankind."

* * *

Sein stepped through the open door of the TARDIS, and was greeted by the Doctor holding out his hand. "Aw, can't I keep it?" she asked.

"No," the Doctor replied. "First, because it's a rare and powerful piece of technology that could be very dangerous in the wrong hands, and second, because it's mine and I happen to like it."

"Fine," Sein sighed, handing him the sonic screwdriver. "Where to next?"

"Mid," Cinque said firmly. "Unless there's something else you need blown up, stolen, or sabotaged," she added, turning to the Doctor.

"I realize this may be hard to believe," the Doctor said, "but I actually prefer to _avoid_ doing any of those things. I'm just not very good at it. So yes, we're going back to drop you off, and let Subaru and Ginga visit for a bit."

AN: Yes, this one is pretty short; I was busy IRL and had writers block. I'm posting it as-is because I'm going to be officially going on hiatus for the next couple months while I mainline the classic show marathon on Twitch and wanted to close out the active plot thread.


	24. Chapter 24

"Welcome back, Doctor," Signum said as they stepped out of the TARDIS.

The Doctor looked at her and the rest of the Wolkenritter. "I suppose this is going to happen every time?"

"Yup," Vita said, settling her hammer back on her shoulder. "Just in case it's another time machine coming."

"They also have to return us to custody," Cinque noted, coming out from behind the Doctor.

"How do you do that, anyway?" the Doctor asked. "Even some time-active civilizations can't."

"Spatial foreshock," Shamal said, raising her hand. "Commandment Chain." Thin glowing green rope tied the Numbers' hands together. "We detect disturbances about an hour before you arrive."

"I hope only the TSAB can do that," Ginga said. "The next armed welcoming party might not be so friendly."

"We can check with the scanner before we go out," the Doctor said.

"Scanner?" Subaru asked.

"Well, I suppose we should go talk to the Colonel," the Doctor said.

"The TARDIS has a scanner?" Ginga asked.

* * *

Colonel Yagami settled back in her chair, flanked by the Wolkenritter and a video projection from the Saint King's Church. "Thank you for telling us what you could," she said. "And for saving our descendants."

"Are we likely to face further attacks by the Daleks in the future?" Knight Carim asked. "Or the past, for that matter."

"Not especially," the Doctor said. "It's a big universe, and they don't hate you any more than they hate everyone else. I'm sure I'll see them again, but you probably won't."

"You'll understand if we don't count on that," Hayate said. "Any help you could give us or our predecessors would be appreciated."

"I'll stop them wherever I find them," the Doctor promised. "Now then, I have a question for you. How much did you really know about me when we met? A lot more than you let on, it seems."

"Yuuno did find some records in the Infinity Library," Hayate said cheerfully. "We weren't sure which ones were from the past, though. And there's a lot we can't get to yet."

"What do you mean 'can't get to'?" Ginga asked. "Do we know where to find them?"

"We know where they are, or at least where they were," Carim said. "According to records elsewhere in the library, there were roughly fifty thousand 'achronal donations' in a particular section. Most of it was sealed off and a quarter of the remainder incinerated a few decades prior to the original builders abandoning the library."

"If we know where they are, let's go there and break the seals," Subaru said. "It can't be that difficult."

"Ooh, yes," the Doctor said. "That's what I love about humans, how you hear about some ancient death trap and immediately say 'let's go there!' Never a dull moment with you around. Before we go poking mysterious dangers with a stick, let's ask why librarians started burning books."

"And then you want to go poke it with a stick?" Ginga asked.

"Probably," the Doctor admitted. "It is a habit of mine." He turned back towards Carim and raised an eyebrow.

* * *

"Welcome to the Infinity Library," the blond man with glasses said. "I'm head librarian Yuuno Scrya." He looked over the Doctor and Ginga. "Did your sister not come?"

"She's staying on Mid for the moment," Ginga said. "She wanted to meet with some friends while she had the chance. We'll call her if we need to break into the sealed section."

"I see," Yuuno said. "Come on, I'll take you to the parts we've categorized." He started to step towards a circular metal pad against the wall, then paused. "Ah, the interior parts are zero-gravity; it can be a bit disorienting…"

"I've been in space before," the Doctor said. "It won't be a problem for me." He glanced at Ginga.

"I did fine in zero-gravity training," Ginga said. "As long as I don't have to fight someone who can fly, it won't be a problem."

Yuuno nodded. "That won't be a problem in this section."

"This library has sections with flying monsters too?" the Doctor asked, stepping onto the pad.

"Some of the previous owners put in battle golems," Yuuno said. "We think they're programmed to only activate to defend against thieves, but we don't know how they recognize authorized personnel, so… wait, there are other libraries with this problem?"

"It's more common than you'd think," the Doctor said. Light flashed and the trio was suddenly floating in midair. The Doctor looked around, up, and down at the bookshelves surrounding them. A dozen people were in the chamber with them, floating along the bookshelves lost in the distance "Impressive. I've seen bigger libraries, but they had a lot fewer books per cubic foot. I hope you have a card catalogue."

Yuuno gave him a resigned look. "We're working on it. This way." He pulled them towards a doorway near the bottom of the chamber. As they approached, a small girl floating nearby glanced up with a smile. Then her green and red eyes widened and she flitted away hurriedly.

"Sorry about that," Yuuno said. "Miss Takamachi is a hard worker, but she's a bit shy."

"I was like that when I was her age," the Doctor reassured him. He looked over at Ginga, who was staring at the floor despondently. "Is something wrong?"

Ginga shook herself slightly and raised her head. "Sorry; seeing her again brought back some bad memories. For her too."

Yuuno winced. "The seals on the section aren't actually that sturdy," he said, "they're for sealing in environmental hazards primarily. Hard for an individual to breach but nothing that would hold up to a determined effort."

"So why haven't you broken them already?" Ginga asked, grateful for the change of subject.

"It was sealed to shut in some kind of threat," Yuuno explained. "We've found the official records of the incident, but they're not very informative. According to the survivors, mostly low-ranking staff working in the outer parts of the section at the time and some of the emergency responders, a swarm of 'hungry shadows' suddenly appeared and started consuming the people in the area. Shield spheres could block them out, but they'd slip around or through anything that didn't provide full coverage. Standard shooting attacks and blades had no apparent effect; only fire or wide area attacks did any damage."

"That does sound nasty," the Doctor said. "And the surviving ones are still in there?"

"We don't know," Yuuno replied. "The investigation concluded that there was insufficient information to determine whether they were living beings or an artificial projection, and whether they aged or required food, oxygen or external energy input to persist. The official decision was to leave the section sealed indefinitely unless the threat could be identified and countermeasures -besides total incineration- taken." He looked thoughtful. "Do you recognize them?"

"I've heard of a few things like that," the Doctor said. "Lots of dangerous things look like shadows. Was it fire that hurt them, or the light?"

"Not light in general," Ginga pointed out. "Magic use is always bright. Belkan styles use more physical attacks and projectiles, but I've seen Colonel Yagami's knights using energy shooting attacks. They're as bright as Midchildan ones."

Yuuno nodded. "The investigators didn't discuss the possibility that it was firelight specifically, but it didn't damage them at any great distance."

"Narrows it down," the Doctor said. "So they weren't literally made out of darkness. Did they burn, melt, or something else?"

"Not clear," Yuuno said. "The knights who first used fire on them were overrun regardless. Then they just blasted the entire area, so none of the survivors could give a detailed description. They found only ash afterwards."

"Also narrows it down slightly. What about where they came from?"

Yuuno shook his head. "Presumably one of the items filed in the section, but with most of the staff dead and the records in the section lost the investigators couldn't reconstruct a complete inventory. Which is made even more difficult by the fact that many of the books haven't been written yet, or were donated from libraries that haven't been built. We know the Tome Of The Night Sky wasn't in there, though."

"That leaves a lot of possibilities," the Doctor said. "Nanoswarms, giant amoebas, Vashta Narada, certain extradimensional beings, another Lost Logia construct none of us know about, to name just a few."

"So we don't know enough to break in and deal with them," Ginga said firmly.

"No," the Doctor admitted. "Even if we were willing to burn all the books -which would defeat the point of opening it- they might be produced from something fireproof."

* * *

"Where is Ginga?" Teana asked Subaru, licking her ice cream and looking dubiously at Subaru's much larger cone.

"Oh, she and the Doctor are visiting the Infinity Library," Subaru said. "Ginga said they'd call if they needed me, but I should go see you, tell you about our trip, and buy you ice cream and cake."

"Did she actually say the last part?" Teana asked.

"Yes," Subaru said. "She said I'd owe you it."

 _Oh no_ Teana thought.

* * *

Yuuno tapped at a pair of massive, intricately engraved steel doors. A massive green magical barrier flickered into visibility and parted, and the doors swung open, pulled by chains of glowing green light. "Here we are," he said, leading the Doctor and Ginga into the room.

The doctor glanced at the mix of books, tapes, data storage devices of varying sophistication with associated playing devices, a cyberman head in a glass box, and strange crystals decorating the room. "Sometimes I wonder why exhibits about me always look like a rummage sale." Then his eyes locked on a particular book. He pushed off the wall towards it and picked it up, frowning. "How did this get here?"

Ginga blinked at the distinctive and familiar blue shade of the cover. "Isn't that-"

"Ah, don't open that one!" Yuuno said hastily. "It's definitely from your future."

The Doctor set it down quickly. "Thanks for the warning," he said. "I hate spoilers." He looked around the room again. "What I'm really hoping to learn is if I'm the last of the Time Lords," he admitted. "If the time lock can be breached with magic, it could have been breached more than once."

"Most of the records don't reference the Time War in any way," Yuuno said. "We've had trouble placing them in meta-chronological order. We haven't found any that _definitively_ refer to you having ongoing or prior contact with the TSAB, but-"

"Most people think the TARDIS is magic," the Doctor finished. "I'll take a look around."

* * *

"So that woman with the pretty eyes is descended from Captain Takamachi?" Teana asked grumpily around bites of cake.

"Not genetically," Subaru said. "She's related to little Vivio, though."

"Well, she is rather perceptive and nice," Teana said, glowering. "I suppose she'll marry a nice man some day."

"Not exactly," Subaru said, grinning smugly.

"What?" Teana Lanster asked.

"Well, Des said…"

* * *

"Here's something," Ginga said. "'It is said that the Doctor traveled to the ends of the universe and found his greatest friend and oldest foe at the final home of mankind'."

"Probably Ixpellia," the Doctor said. "We did promise. What's the publication date on that book?"

"45,176 CE," Ginga said, glancing at the title page. "Far future?"

"Tens of thousands of years," the Doctor said. "Not that long for the universe, pretty long for humans. Keep reading that one; at least it has something I haven't done yet." He turned back to Yuuno.

"This one is about you battling a mad Time Lord and master of the antimatter universe," Yuuno said, raising his hand to let a black book with TOP SECRET stamped on the cover fly to his hand.

"Past," the Doctor said. "I wrote half that file. Next?"

"Legends of your battles with a Time Lord known as the Valeyard," Yuuno continued.

The Doctor shook his head. "Ignore those. Long story. Next?"

* * *

"Atmospheric pressure 102.13 kpa, composition 71.2% nitrogen, 20.43% oxygen…"

"If Yuuno couldn't find it, it probably doesn't exist," Aria said, ears twitching in the video feed. "We'd been looking for information on the Book Of Darkness for about a decade and hadn't even found its real name. He'd tracked it down in a couple of hours."

"He'd found more than I was expecting," the Doctor admitted. "I should've asked Alexia when I had the chance."

"Local average temperature 293.15 Kelvin, planetary variation range of 52 Kelvin…"

"Is that a terraforming survey?" Aria asked.

"Ginga found the button for the voice interface on the scanner," the Doctor explained. "She's having it check all the local conditions. I've never found it very helpful, but it makes her feel better."

"It may warn us about nearby zombies," Ginga said.

"I'm sure that won't happen a third time," the Doctor replied. "How is Jack doing?" he asked Aria.

"He's currently locked in his own powered-down base while calling people to read Emily Bronte for him," Aria said flatly. "Gwen has been kidnapped and Lotte is going to rescue her."

"What?" Subaru asked. "Where is she?"

"Lotte doesn't need any help," Aria said. "They raised one of their old agents, who went insane from using the Resurrection Gauntlet, became a serial killer, and then committed suicide to evade interrogation, from the dead. No magic, alien knife they call the Life Knife. The only known property of the knife is that people killed with it are easier to resurrect."

" _Why_ did they raise her from the dead?" Ginga asked.

Aria shrugged. "Torchwood is irresponsible with unknown artifacts," she said. "At least this time it's not an extradimensional army."

"Yet," the Doctor said. "Give Jack time. But we've got a meeting in the Third Human Empire to keep."

"Background radiation average 10.75 milisieverts per year…"

"Eventually," the Doctor amended.


	25. Chapter 25

"Hello!" Subaru called cheerfully into the intercom next to the apartment door. "Dinah, are you in?"

"Eh? Ah, yes, coming," Dinah called back, sounding slightly flustered.

+++I take it that cake shop does good business+++ the Doctor noted. Ginga just sighed.

The door swung open, revealing Dinah in shorts and a T-shirt. "Hi," she said. "Sorry, I was going to clean up before you showed up, but I got stuck in interviews…"

"I suggest walking away confidently before anyone can think of any questions," the Doctor said. "Always works for me. Well, most times."

"It wasn't that bad," Dinah said. "The crew got most of the questions about the disaster; I just had to talk about what we'd dug out of the ruins." She grimaced. "No one else left could tell them much."

"Have you been alright?" Subaru asked gently.

"Well, mostly," Dinah replied. "We haven't had a memorial service yet, though; I'm not sure how I'll hold up then. And I don't think I'll be going on another dig anytime soon. Honestly, though, it's easier to talk about it than to deal with people trying to spare my feelings."

Ginga nodded sympathetically. "Everyone responds differently," she said.

"So I've noticed," Dinah replied. "The good news is the dig site is under military quarantine; the Eternal Kingdom is sending a battleship to secure any remaining artifacts and I talked the navy out of trying to stop them."

The Doctor frowned. "That's not a name I've heard before."

"They don't have much presence in the Milky Way," Dinah said, leading them into her apartment, which was coated with cables running into a variety of electronic tablets. There was a single round table with four chairs around it, all slightly damp. "Or leave their borders much. I'm not sure why this caught their attention, really. Even warned off the Librarians specifically." Her face fell. "We should have contacted them before we started digging."

"From the Infinity Library?" Subaru asked, taking a seat.

"Yes," Dina said. "They've got more records on pre-Bureau Midchildan history than almost anywhere." Ginga's eyes widened. "Is something wrong?" Dina asked.

"We changed the timeline since we last saw you," the Doctor explained. "When we'd been rescuing the ship no one knew anything about Midchilda, so we went back to the 2400's to find out why and fix it.

"Wait," Dina said. "Wouldn't that have changed every single event afterwards and probably kept me from ever being born?"

"It used to work like that," the Doctor replied. "Very untidy, so the Time Lords fixed that."

"…Okay… moving on… this time we did recognize it as some kind of Midchildan outpost-"

"Belkan," Ginga corrected. "Mid was a colony during the Belkan Wars."

"Really should've asked the Librarians," Dinah muttered. She took a deep breath. "We hadn't been able to identify the Mariage cores, and were bringing them back for analysis. Ixpellia I'd heard of on occasion, but nothing about her creating an army."

"Do you know how she's doing now?" Subaru asked intently, leaning forwards.

"Ah, well, not really," Dinah stammered. "I mean, I'm sure she's fine, probably awake, but she tries to stay out of the news. Supposedly at the end of the Tiberian Spiral campaign she gave some means of contacting her to the leaders of the Triune Compact, but that was tens of thousands of years ago so probably only the Eternal Kingdom still has it."

"This would be the Tiberian Spiral campaign from the war against the Cyberiad?" the Doctor asked.

Dinah nodded. "Back when it lost about ten percent of its stars, yes. Ixpellia was instrumental in persuading the Bureau to continue supporting the Eternal Kingdom's offensive in the third century." She grimaced. "The First Human Empire didn't listen to her. Sometimes I wonder if we'd have made it this far without the immortals propping us up."

"They're not really that different from us," Subaru said. "Ixy can be serious sometimes, but usually she's a little kid."

"Wait, you've actually _met_ her?" Dinah asked incredulously. "When? How?"

"Well," Ginga began.

* * *

Dinah covered her eyes and sighed. "So basically, the history of the universe is forty percent grand long-term trends and sixty percent handsome time travelers."

"You think the Doctor is handsome?" Subaru asked.

"Um, yes. The Doctor. That's who I meant." Dinah said unconvincingly.

"I get that a lot," the Doctor said. "But there's so much I haven't been involved in at all. I don't usually try to change history, just visit it."

"Do you try to not change history?" Dinah asked.

"Not very hard," the Doctor admitted. "But I think I will skip seeing the Eternal Kingdom showing up. That could get a bit too exciting."

"Why?" Subaru asked him. "I could help them; they won't know how to fight Mariage."

"No, they will," the Doctor said. "Most definitely best if we leave them to it."

"They'll be fine," Dinah said. "Anyways, I should get to making dinner. I have, um, instant bread."

"The more grad student food changes, the more it stays the same," the Doctor commented.

"Don't worry about it," Ginga said. "Just make plenty."

* * *

"Do I need to open another box?" Dinah asked, staring at Subaru starting in on a fourth loaf.

"No, this is enough," the Doctor reassured her.

"Alright," Dinah said. "So, what is it you do when you aren't battling Daleks or rescuing people?"

"Keep the Doctor safe and deal with Lost Logia he stumbles into," Ginga said tiredly. "Before we actually started I thought that was just a precaution."

"Wasn't that just an excuse to go on a trip?" the Doctor asked.

Ginga shrugged. "It was a way to go on an adventure, but we were supposed to actually do it. I was expecting it to be much easier, though."

"So was I," the Doctor admitted. "I go to dangerous places a lot, but you're more dangerous than most people I meet. I was actually more worried about keeping you from causing trouble than anything else. Not about being attacked by angry flora again."

"Again?" Subaru asked. "It happened to you before?"

Ginga put her head in her hands. "We're going to keep using the scanner."

"I was thinking about asking if I could come along," Dinah said. "Changed my mind."

* * *

"Well," the Doctor said, standing by the TARDIS console, "where to next?"

"We promised to meet Ixpellia in 0078 and at the end of the universe," Subaru noted.

"Let's get to that later," the Doctor said. "It'll keep. I do owe you a zoo visit, or an amusement park, maybe."

"That sounds good," Ginga said. "When?"

"Sometime nice and stable," the Doctor said. "Later First Human Empire, maybe; get the new lay of the land safely. I know just the place, actually." He turned to the console and began pressing buttons.

"We're still scanning the planet first," Ginga said.

* * *

"Satisfied?" the Doctor asked half an hour later.

"Yes," Ginga said. "Nothing hazardous with the environment, and no dangerous wildlife."

"And it's good to know there's a lot of heavy cybernetics," Subaru said. "It should be easy to get in."

"Right," the Doctor said. "Higher-end than I expected; it looks like your nieces and nephews have gone far. Maybe they've also discovered creative naming."

"They certainly can't be going by their entire serial numbers anymore," Ginga said. "Will the TARDIS be secure here?"

"Well, we won't be needing to leave in a hurry," the Doctor pointed out. "I'll set an automated recall loop so she'll dematerialize after we leave and return in fifteen hours."

* * *

"Hello," the Doctor said cheerfully to the man in the booth by the gates. "Three with a golden ticket." He held it up

The man tapped a button, then nodded. "Authenticated. Go right on in."

"Before that," the Doctor said, "These two-" he indicated Subaru and Ginga "-have military-grade augments. Will that be a problem?"

"No, they're cleared" the man assured them. "We're open to all warborn. Just don't go making trouble or we'll tell the Hellfire Countess who spoiled her king's vacation."

Ginga flinched. +++Doctor…+++

+++I said the Cyber-wars were the best place to send them+++ the Doctor sent defensively. "Are they here right now?" he asked cautiously as he stepped through the gate.

"No, but they will be in two weeks," the man replied. "If you make enough trouble security can't handle it, it'll take longer than that to fix things up."

"It's best for everyone if you just stay on your best behavior," a deep voice added. A woman stepped out from behind the booth. She held out a hand, covered in bony scales and with orange light flickering around it, holding a trio of metallic strips. "Here's your bracelets. Scan at any ride or booth. If you get lost, hold that red button down for ten seconds and it'll trigger a security alert."

"Thank you," Ginga said. She took one of the bracelets and wrapped it around her right wrist. "Do they track where we are?" she asked as Subaru put her bracelet on her left wrist

"Not automatically," the woman replied. "It'll switch on a tracking mode if you trigger the alert, and we can broadcast a signal to turn it on from security." She shrugged. "There's nothing around here that's dangerous to the likes of us, but there's only the one bracelet model. Policy."

"I see," the Doctor said, strapping on his own bracelet. "Ah, I'm afraid I'm not too familiar with other kinds of warborn. If you don't mind me asking…"

"Eternal Kingdom, artificial mage with modified reversion," the woman replied. "The Hellfire Countess says we're based off of some other Neverwhere civilization's shock troops. Adaptive regrowth after critical injuries; the scales are from a direct hit from a cyberman energy blast. I figured three times was enough and mustered out. Been here ever since."

Ginga nodded. "I took a bad chest hit myself recently. I'm glad to get some time off here."

The woman smiled. "That's what this planet is for. I'm Lotus Royce. Welcome to Hedgwick's World of Wonders. I recommend you start with the Spacy Zoomer Ride, if you're pseudo-flight capable."

Ginga stepped through the red curtain of light, bent her knees slightly then leapt up, floating six feet into the air then descending slowly.

She nodded approvingly. "It's just like a low-gravity world. How high up does the field extend?"

"Five hundred meters," the Doctor said, frowning and pulling out his diary. +++It was forty meters before, and they had a ceiling+++

"Well, it's designed for us, after all," Subaru noted, glancing up at the other patrons flitting overhead. She tapped her pendant. "Mach Calibur, civilian mode."

Mach Calibur pulsed. "Yes buddy," it said. Subaru's barrier jacket formed, along with her roller blades, but without her Revolver Knuckle. "Wing Road" Ginga smiled and followed suit, heading up in a spiraling blue and purple double-helix pattern, far faster than their regular ascent, then leveling off at three hundred meters.

"That was cool!" a boy shouted. He swept over on a pair of glowing red wings to the sisters' platform. "Do it again!"

"Sure!" Subaru said cheerfully, dissolving Wing Road underneath her feet and dropping slowly, then rematerializing it twenty meters off the ground, then headed back up. Ginga lagged behind her slightly, then poured on extra speed to catch up. +++A little more warning next time+++ she sent.

On the ground a woman chuckled. "It's good to see them get to play, isn't it?" she asked the Doctor.

He nodded. "They have to grow up too fast, if they get any time to grow up at all. I had rather too much time, not that I made good use of it." He looked around the area at all the children and adults flitting through the air. "Though I hope they don't just grow up with each other. It's hard to be alone, even together. And it can be very dangerous, and I don't just mean when they can punch through steel."

The woman blinked feline pupils. "That's pretty rare even for warborn." She raised her hands quickly, "I won't pry. But you're right; I brought him-" she gestured at the flying boy, circling around the cyborg sisters "-here because I wanted him to be able to show off to, well, regular people without scaring them." She frowned. "It's a lot emptier than when I was a kid, and almost everyone who _is_ here is warborn. And the security… well, it's not heavier, but it's more obvious, you know?"

"I do," the Doctor replied. "Did they threaten to tattle to Countess Stern if he made too much of a mess?"

"No they didn't… they must be really worried about you." The woman shook her head. "Bruce has that Rare Skill but otherwise isn't much of a mage; I got him a civilian Device on a business trip to Bureau space and the salesperson said he was about D-rank. Miss Royce reassured me there'd be someone nearby if he hit the panic button. When I came here they didn't have a panic button, and I didn't see any security until I, um," she blushed slightly "started a brawl with a Saint King's Church children's field trip."

"Ah," the Doctor said. "I suppose maybe that sort of learning experience isn't as highly valued these days."

"I hope the lessons are," she replied, frowning. "Name is Mina Bast, by the way."

"The Doctor," the Doctor replied. Mina's eyes narrowed and she stepped back. "Not that kind of Doctor," he added hastily. "I met Subaru and Ginga, I didn't make them. They're technically my bodyguards."

Mina relaxed. "Maybe pick a name that sounds less like a supervillain," she suggested drily. "It's good to teach them they're more than just weapons, and at least Bruce can see they aren't just dangerous."

"A lesson Miss Royce learned a long time ago," the Doctor said. "So why is she so intent on reassuring us the children are safe here?"

"Children get lost in amusement parks all the time," Subaru said, skating back to the Doctor. "It's good to have a way to find them easily."

Ginga nodded as she came to a halt. "It'd be better to have a constant tracker, but I suppose most parents are worried about privacy."

The Doctor looked at the bracelets on Subaru's left arm and Ginga's right arm. "I'm supposed to be the one who tells you everything will be all right, not the other way around." +++What are you _really_ worried about?+++

+++There's nothing here that's dangerous to the _likes of us_ +++ Ginga replied.


End file.
